1
Soviet Propaganda Machine
POST PRODUCTION SCRIPT
US & INTERNATIONAL VERSION
RED FILES
SOVIET PROPAGANDA MACHINE
an InVision Production
with
Abamedia in association with
PBS & Devillier Donegan Enterprises
Series Producers
William Cran
Kate Leonard-Morgan
Pre-title tease
NARRATOR
00.19CHILDREN OF THE REVOLUTION MARCH TOWARDS THE “BRIGHTER SOVIET DAWN”.
00.29THEY ARE TOO YOUNG TO KNOW THEY’RE GROWING UP IN A SOCIETY BUILT ON HALF TRUTHS….
00.36… TOO YOUNG TO KNOW THAT THEIR MINDS ARE A BATTLEFIELD IN THE WAR OF PROPAGANDA.
00.45VLADIMIR POZNER
The Cold War was really a propaganda war. It was not a hot war, it was a propaganda war in which all sides participated very, very actively, it was a struggle for people’s minds.
00.57 Series Titles____/RED FILES
Subtitle______/Soviet Propaganda Machine
NARRATOR
01.35THE HISTORIC MEETING OF AMERICAN AND SOVIET ARMIES AT THE RIVER ELBE IN GERMANY SYMBOLIZED HITLER’S UTTER DEFEAT.
01.50THE VICTORIOUS ALLIES, ‘GI JOES’ AND RUSSIAN SOLDIERS, CELEBRATED THEIR VICTORY TOGETHER.
01.59THE ALLIANCE OF THE TWO GREAT POWERS HAD NEVER SEEMED CLOSER.
02.12YET WHILE THE WEST WAS WINDING DOWN THE WAR EFFORT, STALIN WAS REBUILDING THE RED ARMY AND TIGHTENING HIS GRIP ON THE COUNTRIES OF EASTERN EUROPE…
NARRATOR cont…
02.25THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE ALLIES WAS ABOUT TO CHANGE FOREVER.
SOF - Iron Curtain speech
02.31“From Stetin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of central and Eastern Europe...”….
02.50
atomic explosion
SOF - newsreel
02.56“…the stunning news that Russia has the atom bomb and has exploded it bursts upon America. John Hugh Citizen wonders ‘what happens now?’”
03.06SOF – PRESIDENT TRUMAN
I want to talk to you today about what our country is up against…
NARRATOR
03.09THE SOVIETS HAD ACHIEVED A BALANCE OF TERROR WITH THE WEST.
SOF – PRESIDENT TRUMAN
All the tings we believe in are in great danger. This danger has been created by the rulers of the Soviet Union.
03.22NARRATOR
NUCLEAR PARITY MEANT MILITARY STALEMATE AND A NEW KIND OF WAR.
SOF – PRESIDENT TRUMAN
.. working together, we hope we can prevent another world war.
HERB ROMERSTEIN
03.32The whole concept of Cold War is not having a hot war, not shooting at each other. So if you’re not using military weapons, then you’re using weapons of propaganda or ideology.
NARRATOR
03.43THIS IS THE STORY OF AN UNPRECEDENTED STYLE OF WARFARE. IT WAS A WAR FOUGHT WITH WORDS, IDEAS, IMAGES AND THE TECHNOLOGIES OF THE NEW AGE.
04.00FOR THE KREMLIN THE STAKES WERE HIGH. IT HAD TO MAINTAIN ITS GRIP OVER THE HEARTS AND MINDS OF ITS OWN CITIZENS AND COMBAT WESTERN INFLUENCE.
04.16RUSSIAN SOF - SUBTITLES
Sov dub theatre/tanks“…This parade of American tanks reminds one of fascist times.”
NARRATOR
04.24WARMONGERING AMERICANS AND GRASPING CAPITALISTS WERE THE NEW FASCISTS.
04.32RUSSIAN SOF -SUBTITLES
Cartoon“How charming this western chief looks. But he doesn’t need peace, he needs war.
04.43RUSSIAN SOF -SUBTITLES
Cartoon“like a drunkard he reaches for the nuclear button ready to disrupt peace.”
NARRATOR
04.50BORIS YEFIMOV, WHO DREW HIS FIRST POLITICAL CARTOONS IN 1918, WAS FORCED TO TOE THE NEW PARTY LINE.
05.03BORIS YEFIMOV
I was often impressed by Churchill, by his will power, by his wonderful oratory, his jokes. I really liked him. But then suddenly it was announced that he was our enemy, and we had to draw cartoons about him
NARRATOR
05.22YEFIMOV’S POLITICAL CARTOONS BEGAN TO SHOW WARTIME ALLIES AS MIRROR IMAGE FASCISTS.
BORIS YEFIMOV
But that was government policy, and it was a situation I couldn’t do anything about.
NARRATOR
05.47DOCTORED NEWSREELS SHOWED CHURCHILL’S IRON CURTAIN SPEECH AS PROOF THAT THE WEST WAS EAGER FOR NUCLEAR WAR.
05.54RUSSIAN SOF - SUBTITLES
..atomic blast“it was a monstrous speech. It resounded into almost complete darkness. A fuse had blown.”
GVs MoscowNARRATOR
06.10AS EARLY AS 1917, BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTIONARIES HAD GRASPED THE NEED FOR RUTHLESS CONTROL OF INFORMATION.
06.23LENIN HIMSELF CALLED PROPAGANDA THE REVOLUTION’S MAIN WEAPON.
06.32 LEONID VLADIMIROV
when in 1918 Lenin closed all the non-communist newspapers.… There was no opposition voice. There was nothing you could hear apart from the Party line. The Soviet propaganda became overnight, total.
NARRATOR
06.50TOTAL PROPAGANDA WAS REINFORCED BY TOTAL CENSORSHIP
06.56LEONID VLADIMIROV
….You couldn’t publish an erm bottle, err a label. You couldn’t publish a err, wrapper of a sweet, an invitation card, nothing until you get the stamp of the Glavlit, that’s the abbreviation of the Russian Censorship.
NARRATOR
07.20INTELLECTUALS AND ARTISTS WERE SET TO WORK GLORIFYING THE PEOPLES’ REVOLUTION.
07.36BRIGHTLY PAINTED “AGITPROP” TRAINS SPREAD THE COMMUNIST MESSAGE.
07.50RAILCARS WERE CONVERTED INTO LIBRARIES, PRINTSHOPS, MEETING ROOMS, PLAYHOUSES AND, ABOVE ALL, MOBILE MOVIE THEATRES.
LEONID VLADIMIROV
08.05… Lenin said, of all arts, the most important for us is Cinema…
NARRATOR
08.19LENIN CALLED FOR NEW FILMS
08.20TO EXALT THE COMMUNIST CAUSE
08.25THE PEOPLE HAD A NEW HOUSE OF WORSHIP. CINEMA WAS USED TO GLORIFY THE REVOLUTION AND TURN ITS LEADER INTO AN ICON.
08.43RUSSIAN SOF - SUBTITLES
Lenin ‘October’ film“He’s so ordinary”
NARRATOR
08.52JOSEF STALIN TOOK THE ‘CULT OF PERSONALITY’ TO NEW EXTREMES
LEONID VLADIMIROV
09.03Before the war Stalin was shown of course very widely but, only erm err as a real person. During the war some new element was introduced, Stalin was portrayed in feature films. ……. and some of them were sheer deification of him…..
There was a film….where Stalin suddenly appears….much bigger than anybody else in a snow-white uniform like a deus ex machina. … like God
10.01RUSSIAN SOF - SUBTITLES
Stalin feature film“Peace and happiness to you all, my friends!”
NARRATOR
10.20STALIN (to:_p_deep_bio_joseph_stalin.doc) NOW CONTROLLED EVERY FORM OF INFORMATION.
10.29HISTORY BOOKS WERE REWRITTEN. NEWSPAPERS CLAIMED FALSELY THAT SOVIET SCIENTISTS HAD INVENTED EVERYTHING FROM THE TELEGRAPH TO RADIO, FROM THE LIGHT BULB TO PENICILLIN.
10.42STALIN’S GREAT TERROR FORCED DOUBTERS TO STAY SILENT.
10.52ANYONE WHO DEVIATED FROM THE PARTY LINE COULD BE PUT ON TRIAL AS A SPY.
11.02BORIS YEFIMOV
My brother was arrested in the office of Pravda newspaper where he was an editor and he disappeared. I realised what was going on and prepared myself for my own arrest, since I was as guilty as he.
NARRATOR
11.24BORIS YEFIMOV WATCHED HIS OWN BROTHER’S SHOW TRIAL.
11.29RUSSIAN SOF - SUBTITLES
Under the party of Lenin and Stalin, the exploitation of man by man has been abolished.
11.35INDICTED AS AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE,
MIKAIL WAS FOUND GUILTY OF CRIMES AGAINST THE STATE …AND SHOT.
BORIS YEFIMOV
11.45I was allowed my freedom. I was left alive and continued to work. I could have just said you killed my brother, no, I'm not going to work. But they would have sent me to the same place.
NARRATOR
12.07AS MILLIONS DIED IN STALIN’S PURGES, THE MOST FANATICAL PARTY MEMBERS SUDDENLY BECAME “NON-PERSONS”.
12.17ENEMIES OF THE STATE WERE AIRBRUSHED FROM THE PAGES OF HISTORY
12.24 ALFRED PORTER
.when people would be taken away and shot uh, they would be a new circular sen, sen, sent to all libraries to all schools and everywhere that they had to cut out a page from the Great Soviet Encyclopaedia and put another page in which was sent to them specially printed and so when Trotsky disappeared, young people who didn’t, you know didn’t know better would ask Trotsky who they’ll say. Don’t, don’t talk about it, don’t talk about it, nobody, nobody, not important. That’s how it was.
NARRATOR
13.08THIS WHOLESALE CENSORSHIP GAVE STALIN’S GOVERNMENT A MONOPOLY ON EVERY FORM OF INFORMATION.
13.19A RELENTLESS STREAM OF PREVALENT PROPAGANDA REACHED INTO EVERY HOME.
ALFRED PORTER
13.27Every house, every flat had to have, had to have a radio on the wall which was wired into, into special socket...It was mostly silent but then one, two times a day it would start crackling and then some voice would say, from Soviet Inform Bureau.
It was, really like Orwell, like, like, like big brother talking to you telling you what you uh, what you should know.
13.57 LEONID VLADIMIROV
Wired network always err told you about the err achievements in every walk err of life.
Achievements around, and of course very negative information about the outside world.
NARRATOR
14.19BY 1950, STALIN HAD ACHIEVED A TRULY TOTALITARIAN STATE.
14.29FROM WOMB TO TOMB, EVERY SOVIET CITIZEN WAS DRILLED IN THE PARTY LINE
14.29LEONID VLADIMIROV
The Old Russian saying says that you may influence a child only when it is as small as to fit across the bed. And when he grows longer than that and you have to fit him along the bed, it would be too late.
ALFRED PORTER
15.01… The moment you arrive in kindergarten you are Little Octoberist, they put on you badge with uh, some little face supposedly Lenin when he was little one and they start indoctrinate you. Uh, granddad Lenin, kindest of all people, Granddad Stalin kindest and wisest of all people.
….by age of four I could already read by heart some poem called uh, Death of Illich, Illich of course being Vladimir Illich Lenin. Uh, you know and, and I was singing songs like uh, something like uh, I am little boy, I dance and sing, I never saw uh, granddad uh, Lenin but I love him
LEONID VLADIMIROV
15.46So the picture of the world is formed in the mind of a toddler, or, or a 7 year old. Was very simple, we live in the best country err in the world. The most advanced. The freeist, and err, the country where erm, the erm, workers and peasants err actually rule.
16.08RUSSIAN SOF – SUBTITLES (little girl poem)
If you’re singing a song of happiness
If you’re going down a hard road
You should know that you’re not alone…
NARRATOR
16.25LITTLE GRADUATED TO THE PIONEERS, WHERE THE MESSAGE OF UNDYING LOYALTY TO THE MOTHERLAND WAS CELEBRATED IN FANFARE FASHION
16.44TATIANA VORONTSOVA
Everyone wanted to be in the Pioneers. Including me. I was ten when I joined, in the third form. There was an acceptance ceremony and we bought pioneer ties for it. And when mother brought the ties home, me and my sister were stroking them .
NARRATOR
17.06TATIANA VORONTSOVA JOINED THE YOUNG PIONEERS IN 1958. FOR HER AND HER CLASSMATES IT WAS A DAY OF INTENSE PRIDE.
TATIANA VORONTSOVA
Young PioneersThe pioneer leaders came, they took the ties and all the pioneers who stood in front of us hung the ties around our necks.
tie ceremonyWe felt so good, we were happy, we were congratulated. At last we were pioneers!
ALFRED PORTER
17.44.. in summer we would go to a special Young Pioneers Camps. Where also be indoctrinated very heavily all those songs about uh, revolution, about this, uh, civil war, about uh, such a great uh, personal examples such as this guy called Pavlic Morozov ….
NARRATOR
18.11SINCE THE EARLY 1930s, THE HERO HELD UP TO EVERY YOUNG PIONEER WAS A THIRTEEN YEAR OLD BOY CALLED PAVLIC MOROZOV.
Kulaks & grain
NARRATOR
18.25THE STORY GOES THAT WHEN PAVLIC FOUND HIS FATHER HOARDING GRAIN HE REPORTED HIM TO THE AUTHORITIES.
….
HIS FATHER WAS ARRESTED AS AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE - AND EXECUTED
18.41 HORRIFIED BY THE BOY’S ACT OF BETRAYAL,
THE LOCAL COMMUNITY TURNED ON THE CHILD AND KILLED HIM.
18.48TO PARTY PROPAGANDISTS, THE BOY WHO DENOUNCED HIS OWN PARENTS WAS A HERO AND A MARTYR.
18.57TATIANA VORONTSOVA
So he was killed, he died a hero. We wanted to be heroes too, and at that time if I had been in the same situation, and my father had done something against the Soviet state, I would have gone and reported him, simple as that.
NARRATOR
19.17THANKS TO PAVLIC MOROZOV, PARENTS LEARNED TO FEAR THEIR OWN CHILDREN.
.
19.22 LEONID VLADIMIROV
There was a psychosis of denunciation and parents were very much afraid to say a free word in the presence of the children
19.34 JANE LITVINOVA
My parents definitely held back information from me. Er, I think they were just very cautious and they had a very good cause to be afraid… My father was working in a scientific research institute, but I believe for the military institute. For them every word er spoken by me er which er, er, could arise some suspicion about er their loyalty, could be ruin of his career…
19.57 ALFRED PORTER
…….. in the Soviet Union you, you, you never knew who was the, the KGB spy really you know, the informer, the snitch. Uh, the on, uh, the only thing you could be sure that they were every where. Your neighbour could be, your friend could be …..
NARRATOR
20.16FOR OVER TWO DECADES THE SOVIET PROPAGANDA MACHINE HAD DEIFIED STALIN.
…..
BUT IN 1953, THE GOD PROVED TO BE MORTAL.
20.28ALFRED PORTER
…. in intervals between very, very sombre music which was played twenty-four hours on the radio. …They were giving bulletins about uh, state of his health. ..Very low blood pressure and this and that. And my uncle was very good doctor he said to his wife, it is the end and she said, “SSHH don’t, don’t talk, don’t mention”. People were afraid even, even, even among themselves in the family…
21.14…I remember a lady doctor came to us and she was asking, God what will happen now with all of us, how can we live without Stalin? And it was genuine you know, people were brought up to believe that without Stalin they, they, they couldn’t survive.
NARRATOR
21.42STALIN’S DEATH WAS THE END OF AN ERA.
21.46NO SUCCESSOR COULD APPLY THE SAME DEGREE OF RUTHLESS CONTROL.
21.54AFTER 1953 OTHER VOICES BEGAN TO PENETRATE THE IRON CURTAIN.
SOF
Arch Reagan Radio arch“My name is Ronald Reagan. Last year, the contributions of sixteen million Americans to the crusade for freedom, they were this powerful 135 thousand-watt radio free Europe transmitter in western Germany. This station daily pierces the iron curtain with the truth.”
NARRATOR
22.18THE SOVIET GOVERNMENT WAS SAID TO SPEND MORE MONEY TRYING TO JAM WESTERN RADIO STATIONS THAN THE AMERICANS SPENT ON ALL THEIR BROADCASTS TO COMMUNIST COUNTRIES.
NARRATOR cont…
22.29THESE EFFORTS WERE IN VAIN, MILLIONS OF ORDINARY RUSSIANS STILL GOT ROUND THE JAMMING AND TUNED IN.
ALFRED PORTER
22.40No jamming could be really hundred percent. Once I remember I was listening and jamming was not effective and I could hear a voice telling in Russian about some Catholic priests in the Soviet Union being persecuted, being arrested, being thrown in prisons, sent to camps and I was thinking camps what camps. I knew only Pioneer, Young Pioneer camps no, no other camps. So I thought how people can tell such lies. then I thought maybe are they people to not lie to. Maybe the radio doesn’t lie.
23.21 JOE ADAMOV
The official propaganda told its people one thing, and the from abroad be it from London or from New York or whatever, or from Germany they heard the, the true end of the story, that was it. It was only natural they wanted the true story and the only way to do it was to tune in a foreign station
23.49 VLADIMIR POZNER
I think they had a great impact err, according to different statistics but approximately 40 million people, 40 to 50 million people listened regularly to those broadcasts for information.
24.01 ABBOTT WASHBURN
If they know that there is, there is freedom, there are free people, other, elsewhere, its a stubborn idea that stays in their mind that they can enjoy freedom some day, and this is what these radios were doing, keeping up the hope.
NARRATOR
24.29IN 1956, HUNGARIANS, URGED ON BY RADIO BROADCASTS FROM THE WEST, ROSE UP AGAINST THEIR COMMUNIST GOVERNMENT.
24.41SOVIET COVERAGE OF EVENTS GAVE NO HINT THAT RUSSIAN TANKS WERE CRUSHING A GENUINELY POPULAR UPRISING.
ALFRED PORTER
24.50In the Soviet Union, they were telling basically that in Hungary the forces of reaction tried to take over the country, to bring Hungary out of Soviet block to bring it in to the capitalistic camp. And that brotherly Hungarian people asked Soviet Union to intervene, to, to save them from, from, from dread of uh, return of capitalism.
NARRATOR
25.23COMMUNIST POLICEMEN, LYNCHED BY HUNGARIAN MOBS, WERE USED TO JUSTIFY SOVIET INTERVENTION.
25.32RUSSIAN SOF - SUBTITLES
Soviet Arch of Uprising“A terrifying spectre of the fascist beast had risen all over Hungary. It was necessary to save the fate of the country.”
25.50 VICTOR LISTOV
The uprising in Hungary in 1956 is a very important landmark in our history. People started to argue with each other over events there. Some thought our country was wrong, but sadly they were in the minority. The majority were brought up in the old way, thought we were right.
NARRATOR
26.21THE RED ARMY’S BRUTAL SUPPRESSION OF THE HUNGARIAN UPRISING HAD SHOCKED THE WORLD.