Originally posted by Elfenwolf
I'm surprised it wasn't part of the anti-American rhetoric broadcast by the Soviets during the Cold War.
There were good reasons for that.
First, unlike enormous variety of disparate free sources of informtion in the West, all the information soviet citizens saw came from one source. So even some juicy tidbit could have been unused due to simple oversight.
Second, the soviet propaganda correctly did not go for comprehencive covering of real facts - prefering to stick to few basic points, some of them imaginary. Real life is not easily controllable and can have some unforseen implications - so better not to use it. Also, even negative information is still information and a basis for future conclusions. It was important to keep soviet citizens hostile but no less important was to keep them ignorant.
Third, on this particular issue several nationalities were moved during the WWII on pretext of their cooperation with the enemy. They were dropped into the cattle cars on the few minutes notice and shipped to the middle of inhispitable Kasakhstan deserts. Considerable part of them (like a half) died in the process - mostly women and children, since the men were in the army. Compared to that, what americans did to japanese would have seemed mild. Since the survivors were allowed to return by post-Stalinist government, that communist crime is one of the few that the public was aware of.
miko
