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People under communism. This is a transcribed series of programs based on documented evidence and expert knowledge about the power and intentions of the Soviet Union. This series is presented by the National Association of educational broadcasters in consultation with scholars from the Hoover Institute and library at Stanford University. The Russian Research Center and Harvard University and the Russian Institute of Columbia University. The program you're about to hear. The music. And the dream is based on materials and counsel provided by Dr. Harold Mitchell chairman of the Hoover Institute. Dr. Harold H Fisher is a radio commentator and author of numerous books on
the Soviet Union. He served with the American Relief Administration and Russia has traveled widely in Asia and is a noted scholar on Soviet policy in the Far East. Here is Dr. Fisher to introduce our documentary drama the music and the dream. Perhaps it is happening to you as it has to me that you have been forced by some emergency to learn about a family or a group of people whom you had scarcely heard of before by some turn of fate it becomes important for you to know what they do for a living. What church or other organizations they belong to. What principles and policies they believe in. Well suddenly it has become important for us as a nation to know about the hopes and fears and habits of the peoples of Asia and the Middle East peoples whom silencers made our neighbors and partners in the problems of the world. These people so little known to most of us want to be better known. They
want to be respected and treated as equals to be allowed to manage their own affairs to have their fair share of the good things of life. The Communists are telling them that they know a shortcut to these things. Now we know that others have taken that shortcut and it is led them to a dead end of stagnant despotism. Why don't our neighbors in Asia see as clearly as we do where this communist shortcut leads. It is important for us to know why they do not. If the Asians take the wrong road it will not only do them great harm but it will put us in great danger. We must do two things if we are to prevent the Asians from taking the wrong road. First we must have a real and friendly interest in these Asian neighbors so that we can understand their troubles and particularly those troubles that the Communists make use of in their propaganda. Our second task is to work out with the Asians ways of cooperation so that they can go forward with
us in the march of progress along the road of freedom. This program is concerned with the first of these tasks. Understanding some of the problems of our Asian neighbors who are not under communist pressure. You will hear what some of these Asians are saying and in your mind's eye I see what they are doing Mr Justice Douglas of the United States Supreme Court Dr. Raman team oir recently of the Joint Commission on rural reconstruction in China Dr Charles Malik the distinguished ambassador of the Republic of the Lebanon will speak to you in their own voices. And now the music and the dream. But this is a museum.
You recognize instantly of course this painting. Yes it has value. Francois delay in 1863. You see that unlike usual Brett dong. M.A. does not color toiler with false sentiment. No nor does he use such subjects for vehicles of social protest like save quote day and I hope you have a different view. A look at the painting. Look at it as our American poet Edwin Markham looked at it look at the farmer in the painting warning Saddam all but broken. Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans upon his hoe and gazes at the ground. The emptiness of ages in his face. And on his back the burden of the work who made him dead to
rapture and this. The thing that grieves not him that never hopes. Whose hand was a bit slanted back this brow whose breath blew out the light within this brain. Is this the thing the Lord God made them have in the land. How can we ever straighten up and. Touch it again with immortality. Rebuild it in. The music. And the dream. Make right the immemorial infamies perfidious wrongs emetic couple will be prisoners of starvation. Is that the end is that. And must we suffer the dreadful prophecy of Edwin Markham to come true before we find too late. Oh reason and dollars must of rebellion shake or
shall rise to judge the world. After the silence of the century the end of the National Soviet shall be the human race. Yes you have nothing to lose but your chain. Thanks. Man with the hoe has been joined by the men with the hammer and sickle. They offer more than bread alone. They say they can straighten up the shape make him and restore his human form and dignity. They claim an answer to his age old anguish and any answer is better that I'm little. After the silence of the
center's. North West problem. Iran is a barren place and with. A bitter cold when. It beats the mud villages of the peasants without mercy. In 1941 Russia occupied Azerbaijan to protect the Rio from Nazi attack and to provide an allied supply route to Russia. In 1946 world opinion mobilized by the United Nations forced Russia to leave. But in those five years the print of the bear was set firmly in the land. In many ways broadly diverse sexing and effective respect for the Soviet was conditioned into the people troops occupying I was honored by John must be a model of rectitude. Any of our troops showing discourtesy to the civilian population will be punished. I will
offer a shock to any Russian soldier who molests a woman in Azerbaijan. We shall have to hear in many ways the Soviet condition the people to respect the Soviet in many ways broadly diverse succinct effective the battalion of Muslim troops which deserted from the Soviet army has been retaken and dealt with. They were chained together in the cellars of the garrison at Hoyt and the floor flooded with several inches of water. At this report the last man has just died of starvation and cold. We shall be obeyed. And if it takes terror let it soak sinked effective memorable broadly broadly diverse for example again the Russian agents working the villages in pairs and interviewing the poverty crushed peasants. What is your name comrade. Ahmad. And how many in your family. My wife and seven children. Which is your house.
Look at the miserable place this good man must live in. Surely we have something better for him. Let me see. Good man. Here is the home of the deputy prime minister in terror and as yet I sang put down for that. You know what that means at night when the revolution comes and we take their own that would be your home. Thank you thank you. Now how many rugs do you have. Every Persian has a rug master. How many one put him down for six rugs. The nicest Kurdish the rag man has in public. Thank you thank you. Now do you have enough meat for the children. Are you content with your school. All of this and mark it down carefully. This is mine. He is a man. Thank you comrade and.
Such effective simple folksy quiz masters studio audience of one billion sold first naming the hero to four anonymous purveyors of pie in the sky. Poverty ridden villages a campaign promise of precinct playing communist style. 1948 49. The savage wind of Azerbaijan cuts like land says snow has covered the ground for seven months. Hoods shrink by two thirds. On the desolate Mogadon step. Eighty percent of the livestock is dead. Only famine on these lean horse can negotiate the wind in the snow. Spring scarcity and black markets and inflation of the Dervishes of spring 100 tons of wheat is sent by the
Persian government to Tabriz in northwest Azerbaijan terminus of the trans Caucasian railroad. It never reaches the poor it reaches the local officials the local officials sell it on the black market. On the ground arrays of the land loans are bursting if not for the Russians. On. A Russian. Hill. But. Russia was our good friend. As she was the homeland. Russia so that it
will shake all shores. It's a straight out of the Arabian Nights. Give me yours blinded and correctly ragged and his wife is toothless. And they're both old. And both of. You. But they were not always beggars. Two long winters before they were tenants we worked hard all right I was paid three fifths of our crop as Rand so yeah three fifths of winters came and remained long. We ran out of this. Now listen the interest on farm loans and Bojo is 12 percent number but 20
percent you hear landlord try DJGPP 40 80 cents for grain. When we paid him back the next. The grain was worth only 40 cents so we had to pay him back twice as much as we borrowed plus the interest plus the interest. Here here here there's more. Listen do you hear. We didn't have enough food until spring. Lenz had plenty but he wanted too high a price and 40 percent. I'm too old to work anymore what could we do. We left the farm. You had money. Very little and we thought we could live the winter out in this endless time with the collaborationists when the Soviets leading the blind into Tabriz. At dusk they stopped at the
bazaar to buy food and ask about lodging. Here here came over to us. And speak to me and not correspond speak to me I am his wife and I bowed. We came to buy grain and it is already years that the story game to buy grain. Good both come to jail with. A criminal offense to sell grain to a resident of Tabriz that's why they came to buy contraband is criminal only enough food for ourselves. How much money do you. A hundred pounds. Why. I'm very sorry for you.
Why I am very sorry for you because you will not have any money whatever after the fine which just happens to be exactly four hundred. How would you like a bag. Thank you I mean advantage your man here seems genuinely blind. We have always worked on the bread. You hear a way it is a body. We want to share body na. You are. Was your body what did you stand for and was it a benevolent power he wielded to become the absolute power that always corrupts absolutely. Dr. Harold H Fisher chairman of the Hoover Institute in library on war revolution and peace tells us about the issue of Adi is typical of those chosen to carry the flame of communism to the peoples of the East.
First of all he is a native Azerbaijani. He himself knew from experience the chief grievances of the people. He had some education. I knew something of the world of men and ideas outside Persia. Finally he was carefully trained by the Russians in the communist beliefs that guarantee a heaven on earth from which war and injustice have been banished. He was also trained in all the arts of persuasion and coercion in frankness and deceit humility and assurance leadership and discipline that all the required equipment of the militant communist party and others thus equipped return from Russia to Persia in the 1930s to carry on political work. Later you organized a political party a national by John. He did not call it a communist party or even a workers party. He called it a Democratic Party. But the real leaders were communists and many of them like Bush if he were Russian trained under Russian protection set up a revolutionary
government in true communist style he appealed for the support of the people not only by promises of a better life but by acts to meet their grievances. He seized lands of the absentee landowners and distributed them to the landless peasants. He nationalized banks. He punished bribe takers. He forced prices down. He took steps to improve the health situation and conditions of labor and he promised better roads and schools and a better life for everyone except the rich. He used spies and political police against those who opposed him and against any supporters who did not toe the mark. Dealt with the grievances with blood and iron. Google. A dent a piece of Audi had left for Russia 45 narrow minutes before the Persian army returned to very close close call.
The Soviets who had trained him and under whose dubious blessing he rules did not come to peace without a support. Under pressure of ATI the people ate. Whatever the future price. The landlords came back with a Persian army demanding their back rent starving the people again for grain payment. Again the people did not eat. Thousands of people wandering the streets of Tubby's no one helps them they are condemned to death by starvation and exposure. Their present masters are indifferent and the Anglo-American imperialists wall the Moscow voice does not say it. The whisper of it is implicit in every impost from the aerials of Radio Moscow. Join them why do you Soviet Union in the struggle for peace Comrade you have nothing to lose. There is enough. All comrades to mood are all but you are condemned to death by all present master. Nothing to lose but your chains.
This is Radio Moscow Washington. Coming Washington Hello London. Come in London are you there London. Come in the West come in Washington. By John means the place of the keeping of the flock. The Communists have fanned that fire to the blazing point. He was a communist. Yet his program was so popular that if a free election had been held in 1950 thousands would have voted for him. There are 3 million people in Azerbaijan. Not one close and of the 3 million are communists.
There is a Radio Moscow. He gave us to eat. We must eat we must hold up our heads. Yet here. I am. Oh oh. Oh oh oh oh oh. Oh god Al. Mohammad just a mess of. Foreign high from the hollows and minarets of Islam. And always and cause a faithful the prayer from the Mediterranean to the Pacific from Africa to Red Russia one
eighth of all the peoples of the news face Mecca. Pray load the load. The towers and minarets in the Soviet. Where forced away from the powers of darkness cry. Your award is neither here nor there. Thing. Thing thing and there has been no reward to Islam. Arabia Egypt Persia Pakistan. No peace or dignity or security in the system by which the landlords outrage the very soil over which they themselves might. Exhaust the earth. With their own greed. Exhaust and afflict the
spirit of the people who work the soil. A peasant in a Moslem village is a slave. He pays four fifths to seven eighths and even more of his crop for the landlord. The landlord owns everything land mud houses animals the very water for irrigation. The voice of calm but it is the voice of any enlightened Moslem like me of Jericho. A lawyer and patriot British trained forward looking. What does he want from the west. Not your money although Thank you. First please tell America not to lecture us about democracy but do not tell our people we must choose between democracy and communism. The people here are not free to make the choice. They are slaves. They are illiterate. They have no present escape from a misery. For them there is no such
thing as real liberty and choice. Then what should we do. Help us in a peaceful way to get rid of the feudal system that holds us helpless in its grip. America should throw its weight on the side of the honest progressive elements which can be found in every country. Then what can America do. What will America do. Let's turn again to Dr. Harold H. Fisher of the Hoover Institute. Dr. Fisher I am one of the many who have been asked that question point blank who have seen it in the faces of the young men and women of Asia and the Middle East. I have been asked how can we possibly counteract the clever communist propaganda that make such effective use of the misery the poverty the ignorance the oppression under which these people live. We have the knowledge and the tools with which to improve their economic position. We have the experience in cooperation in
community and private enterprises. We have the resources of those ideals that we think of as the promise of American life. We have much more to offer than the rigid formulas of the communists. We are just beginning to learn how our knowledge and experience and ideals developed on this North American continent can be expressed in terms that are adapted to the conditions of Asian life. We are learning that while 2000 machines and dollars are necessary they must be used with sympathy and knowledge. What can America do. What will America do. These are questions that have been faced by the distinguished author of strange loans and friendly people. The book from which the foregoing happenings in the Middle East have been taken. Mr Justice William O Douglass of the United States Supreme Court has traveled among these new neighbors of ours on the other side of the world. He has talked with them in their villages and in their toe and he has been deeply
moved. Justice Douglas the complaints of the peasants of Asia are just as Pacific as those in our own Declaration of Independence. And to them they are just as important. Lack of medical care comes first. Lack of schools comes second. Then land reform and a desire to learn how to farm the modern way. Then comes the right to vote to elect their rulers to expel and punish corrupt officials. And finally and of great importance a new sense of nationalism which shows itself in many ways a tendency to nationalize natural resources to have local capital in partnership with foreign capital in developing the country. And a feeling of independence and resentment against interference in meddling by foreigners. The people of Asia want the good things of life. And they include freedom and justice among those good things freedom and justice are indeed our missions in life. We must go to Asians not only in search of customers for our surplus goods but also in search of partners
in the struggle for freedom and justice and peace. If we are to save Asia from communism. We must by deed as well as by word identify ourselves with the aspirations of the peasants. And help them by kindness and understanding to achieve a fuller life. We must go to the east with humility mindful of our debt for the great cultures the east has given us. After all it was from the east that all the great religions came including the religion that has shaped our history and given us the glory of a Christian civilization. With. The way our program continues following a 10 second pause for station identification. The.
Current. Owner. You are listening to people under communism. A transcribed series of follow up programs based on documented evidence and expert knowledge about the power and intentions of the Soviet Union. We continue now with the music. Andrew. Cohen our. Own eh. Resigned to the general disenchantment and the decline of magic and cherish his time as cheering flying carpets for a jeep almost in the shadow of biblical Iran grounded the Ark at last here across the border lies Russia watching and waiting for the
right moment to end poverty and unrest and hunger and discrimination. To her own ends you talk with a man named must leave young forward looking governor and positively nobody's fool. He has a plan.
Series
People under communism
Episode
Music and the dream, part one
Producing Organization
National Association of Educational Broadcasters
Contributing Organization
University of Maryland (College Park, Maryland)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/500-2b8vff8w
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Description
Episode Description
This program, the first of two parts, dramatizes the struggle between the U.S. and Soviet Union over controlling Asia's emerging revolutionary path.
Series Description
A series of documentaries, interviews and talks based upon documented evidence and expert knowledge about the power and intentions of the Soviet Union.
Broadcast Date
1952-12-21
Topics
Politics and Government
Subjects
Soviet Union--Relations--United States.
Media type
Sound
Duration
00:29:53
Embed Code
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Credits
Advisor: Hoover Institute and Library on War, Revolution, and Peace
Advisor: Columbia University. Russian Institute
Advisor: Harvard University. Russian Research Center
Composer: Solinski, Vladimir
Director: Papp, Frank, 1909-1996
Funder: Fund for Adult Education (U.S.)
Narrator: Moss, Arnold, 1910-1989
Producing Organization: National Association of Educational Broadcasters
Speaker: Fisher, Harold H. (Harold Henry), 1890-1975
Writer: Geiger, Milton
AAPB Contributor Holdings
University of Maryland
Identifier: 52-38-7 (National Association of Educational Broadcasters)
Format: 1/4 inch audio tape
Duration: 00:29:42
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Citations
Chicago: “People under communism; Music and the dream, part one,” 1952-12-21, University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed March 29, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-2b8vff8w.
MLA: “People under communism; Music and the dream, part one.” 1952-12-21. University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. March 29, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-2b8vff8w>.
APA: People under communism; Music and the dream, part one. Boston, MA: University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-2b8vff8w