People under communism; Pattern of world conflict, part 2 of 2
- Transcript
People communism. Presented by the National. Program director. During World War Two Dr Philip Mosley was advisor to the Department of State and
expert at the Moscow conference in 1943. The Potsdam conference in 1945 and the meetings of the council the foreign ministers of London and Paris in 1945 and 1946. He has spent some 2000 hours as a United States representative in face to face negotiations with the Russians on international commissions. Here is Dr. Mosley to introduce a document a drama. Pattern of world conflict in the conflict with world communism. The people of the free world cannot afford to be indifferent or cynical or overemotional if we should make that mistake. The leaders of world communism will take advantage of it to defend freedom. We must know the aims the methods and the techniques of the Soviet rulers. This is the purpose of what you are about to hear. We must be objective and exact because there is no other way in which we can understand the meaning of the conflict. And if there is no understanding.
Freedom is in danger and no pattern of world conflict. In the spring of 1945 the fields of Europe would turning green as if in readiness for the end of the war. Somewhere in Czechoslovakia an American detachment far ahead of the main body moved cautiously toward a rendezvous. And there head of time. Only a minute or so what happens when we see him. I mean what are we supposed to do and stop worrying. I'm the worrying type especially on a blind date like this. Relax after all they're only human. They waited without speaking until out of the woods. A line of soldiers in single file. Here they come Corporal wait here.
Lieutenant Norman United States Army love late night and the soldiers American and Russians stood motionless and silent. Bound by the formality of the occasion until one man spoke. Oh anybody want to cigarette. Yeah got it. You're a good one. The Allies would fought a war at opposite ends of a continent for the first time and though each spoke in a language strange to the other there was no hindrance to the joyful whole hearted communication of feelings. But there was the need to say in words what cannot be entirely expressed by smiles and pounding on the back. I mean guns. There is yeah whatever you say buddy I'm glad it you haven't had a cigarette. I'm Mini-Cons 6.3 was young and you're trying to tell me something. Good ole Russian. Friends are.
It was. Americans and Russians friends. This was the spring of 1945. But the season has changed and the time is now. Now at this moment. Draw a line on the map of Europe from my mind's gone the Arctic Ocean south enclose the Baltic countries cutting Gemini in half and passing through Austria to build a barrier around Czechoslovakia Poland Hungary Romania Bulgaria Albania. Behind the line is the Russian soldier. Behind the line a millions of people of many nationalities who want to live in friendship and peace with the world. But their voices are not heard. I finally have what. God was saying. Atl. With. These are the violent voices of anger hate and
conflict. The voices of the Communist leaders and their followers on the western side of the line. Strikes in France riots in Italy demonstrations in Germany and there have been other. Communist guerrillas in Greece in Indochina War in Korea over all the songs all the voices of the men who direct the conflict on every continent of the earth. Yeah well we've got noisy. This is the voice of Soviet foreign minister speaking at a meeting of the United Nations in a language on known to almost all of the American people he is talking to the world and to
us which constitutes one of the important links in the system of military political blocs of the Western States directed against the Soviet Union and the countries of the people's democracy. The policy of the president of the United States of America and the United Kingdom as stated at the head of the Soviet government is a policy of aggression a policy of unleashing and use that at the present time when the mobilization of the aggressive forces continues uninterrupted. The Soviet Union considers it a duty. Again I'm going to raise my voice against the preparation and the inciters of a new war to raise its voice and it up and I have had enough. The funny thing John. You listen to him and suddenly you realize he's talking about you about us. You feel like a warmonger a peace loving person myself but John the man
on the radio he doesn't believe it. I wonder why the Russians don't really believe the things they say to the world. Why shouldn't they they say them often enough to convince themselves. We're going to talk about people's democracies Poland Hungary Romania democracy with secret police and concentration camps. What about American war mongering. Have to Korea. We haven't had a letter from Tony in three weeks and there is no need to worry. I know but still he forgets to write he's only a kid he's 20 so it takes time for mail to come from Korea. What do you say to a movie. I'm all right John. It is a necessary course it is. There's a movie I've been waiting weeks to see. Then we'll go. I'll be ready in a minute. Fine. All the same. I'd like to know what the Russians really mean. In every language used anywhere on the earth.
And in actions that have as plain a meaning one would seize the Russian leader speak to the world. Now we're beginning to us in homes places where men and women work versus days. We're beginning to us what are they say. What do they mean. These are questions that are being studied at Columbia University's Russian Institute of which Doctor Filippi Mosley is director. Dr. Mosley Where is the starting point for finding an answer if one has had to sit day after day negotiating with the Soviet spokesman and he is bound to feel the difference in thinking a difference between our side and the Soviet side. Of course any negotiator is out to get all he can for his side. But when we are negotiating with friends say with the British or the Brazilians we always feel that one result of the negotiation should be the strengthening of goodwill and understanding on both
sides. Now the Soviet leaders just do not believe there is any such thing as goodwill within our own country as well as in dealing with friendly nations. We have tough bargaining and lots of noise. But behind all the racket is the fact that we assume that the other party to the bargain is going to go on existing that the other fellow is going to have an independent will of his own. And that it is important that there be trust and goodwill between us. The Soviet leaders are completely convinced that they or we must go under. That each bargain or settlement is not a step toward easier relations but a step towards the destruction of them or us. And that is why they fight with every kind of technique to gain even a small point in the struggle to increase their power. They have developed a wide range of techniques. We do not like to use some of their techniques just as
we prefer to assume good will rather than ill will as a basic factor in human relations. But for our own self preservation we have to know to recognize the Soviet techniques. The words and the actions are all techniques and the techniques add together to form a pattern a pattern of conflict that can be discerned on every continent of the earth. What you're about to hear some of the people are real and some of been invented. But the story they tell is true. The. You're my name is Maria. I would tell you our story the story of what happened to me and to my husband. And our son. We survived the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia. For each family for each person it was a miracle but we survived.
Even in the summer of 1940 six a year after the liberation of Prague we still breathed deeply as we walked in the streets as if to fill our lungs with the new re. And you want to stop for a cup of coffee. No yun. Let's just walk. The noise in the streets. I like it. As if to make up for the years of whispering this weather is bringing out the street artist. Let's not stop yon. No politics today. Only for a minute Maria. Just to be in a group and not be afraid. We must turn to the aid of the Soviet Union. It's beginning again beyond the bitterness of the conflict. I want to hear any more. They leave us alone. We can we live in peace. But we couldn't live in peace. At first the feeling of freedom is unknown. But
underneath an easing. Fed by the speeches and the arguments in the streets in the shops and offices in the universities where on Ton was a stoop even in our home with people who were our friends. Why do we have to choose between the east and the West. What an innocent sounding question. Who told you to ask if you. What are you talking about it's a plain question. Why can't we be friends with both. Yeah a friend is someone who helps you when you need help. Stop preaching sermons and say what you mean. All right I'll be specific. When our cotton mills were standing idle and the workers were starving it was the Soviet Union that came to our aid. I know. You mean the cotton. But yes yes the cotton that the US gave us as a gift as a gift without asking for payment. I remember it was a generous thing to do but the American gas the Americans what did they do for us. It was the Red Army that liberated Prague. It was the Soviet cotton freely given the started on Mills turning again.
Yun never forget this. Our only friend is the Soviet Union. Again and again we heard it from the Communists and those who followed them in their newspapers on the radio. Czechoslovakia is worked on factories needed supplies. It was the Soviet Union that gave it up. We couldn't deny it. And yet it didn't seem like the whole story. We were silent because we didn't know the whole story. But there were some who knew the Czech communist leaders knew the whole story but they wouldn't tell it. Maybe some of the cotton mill workers knew but they couldn't tell if they could only do what they were ordered. To take the paint and help me address the crates. What's the destination. Us. Oh oh that must be a mistake. What do you mean a
mistake. The foreman gave me the orders. They can't be this is cotton cloth isn't it. Naturally that's what you manufacture in a cotton mill. It's cost made from the Soviet rocket. What of it. But that cotton was a gift to the people of Czechoslovakia or from the USSR X-raying. What's so complicated about it. The khaki You know we're giving it the raw cotton sent by the USSR was returned to the USSR as manufactured cotton cloth Czechoslovakia was paying in labor and transport. Three times the world rate for raw copper that the Soviet government claimed was a gift. But in 1946 an ordinary citizen of Prague could not know this every day he heard the statement before us and misleading statement on street corners over the radio in parliament in unions and social clubs. The same questions
the same false answers endlessly repeated the greater the law by a more loudly it is so. This is the technique of Soviet propaganda. The first technique in the pattern of conflict. This is how it was in Czechoslovakia in 1906. The pattern is the same today in all parts of the world. March 8th 1952. A statement by the Chinese Communist foreign minister Joanne lie. The United States Air Force in Korea has dropped bombs containing disease bearing insects. We call upon the civilized world to condemn the barbarous use of bacteriological wealthy and to impose upon the press in the next few weeks at every meeting of the United Nations Disarmament Commission the Soviet delegate spoke on the same theme the use of bacteriological warfare by the United States and Korea is a crime against humanity.
Mr. Chairman as United States delegate I repeat the United Nations forces have not used bacteriological weapons. Every civilized person must be revolted by such barbaric tactics the United States and 59 other nations have recommended an impartial investigation by the International Committee of the Red Cross. The peace loving people of the world who have been shocked by this example of Western inhumanity the Soviet delegate agreed to such an investigation. The people of Europe of Asia of the Near East will know how to judge a nation that uses such weapons. The people of the world are entitled to a direct answer. Will the Soviet government agree to an investigation. Yes or no. No the Red Cross is a tool of Wall Street. We are hungary and scientists have been profoundly shocked to learn that the United States forces have used bacteriological weapons to exterminate the peaceful we the delegates to the World Peace Council denounce the criminal use of bacteriological weapons. We the representatives of the first international conference for the Defense of Children
are horrified that at present many children are being killed by bacteriological warfare in Korea and China does a lie endlessly repeated become ridiculous or overpowering. How can it be believed Dr. Mosley. What do the communists hope to accomplish by this kind of propaganda through their massive propaganda campaign accusing us of inflicting germ warfare. On the North Koreans and the Chinese. The Soviet propaganda machine wanted to rally its own people and its subject peoples and to weaken and divide those nations who oppose Soviet expansion. Ever since the end of the war and especially since Stalin's election speech of February 1946 the Soviet machine has tried in every way to identify America with Hitler and fascism. The Soviet propagandists do not worry about evidence they have learned that
by constantly drubbing in their own story they will lead more and more people to believe it. They know that the peoples whom they control have very little independent knowledge by which to judge Soviet claims and accusations and they try wherever they can to control every channel of information. It is true the Soviet rulers do not punish people for listening to the Voice of America. So far as we can tell. But they punish them severely if they repeat to their neighbors some information which they have heard on The Voice. In this way by suppressing access to contrary evidence by magnifying the volume of their own propaganda. The Soviet rulers believe that over a period of time they can bring people to think and believe in the way they want. This is the technique of propaganda and the pattern of conflict. In Prague in all of Czechoslovakia an easiness grew the propaganda
never stopped and it seemed as if we lived with the sound of loud and angry voices always you know we tried to shut them out sometimes for a little while. We succeeded. But the communists did not stop but there were things that could not be shouted. Down that day in 1947 when my husband was called into the office of the factory manager. Thank you said you wanted to talk to me. Perhaps you know that we reorganizing the staff of office workers. I didn't know so if you want my suggestions as a senior member of the staff I'm not asking for your advice. I'm sorry it's just that the former manager used to ask me often you don't understand. I'm trying to tell you that as of tomorrow you will work and crack the fear. I don't understand you don't have to understand. I've worked here since before the war.
I am quite a created senior by more than five years. Graco clearly has other qualifications than seniority. Now I understand Cutler is a Communist Party member. Draw whatever conclusion you like who have no right to do this. Don't lecture me. Save your energy for your job. There were hundreds thousands of factions in the civil service and police skipped over in promotions to teach a lesson. It was a lesson that was learned by many. Even in the university where our son. Was a student. Don't look at me like that on tone. A person has the right to do what is best for him so if you expect me to admire you because you ran like a scared sheep to join the Communist Party I wasn't the only one. At least if you believed in karma and so on. I'm a medical student. I want to get an internship in a hospital that doesn't depend on your
political beliefs. Maybe today it doesn't. Not yet but by the end of the year when I graduate away angry and try to understand it's you who don't understand the Nazis tried to make the students join their groups don't you remember this is different they couldn't make the students given. The only thing they could do was close the universe. This is different I tell you yes. That was almost 10 years ago this is now and now you're a student. I'm torn because I joined the party. Doesn't mean I'm with them. You're only fooling yourself. You are committed and they will see that you'll stick to it. Here in the university you will be lonely. You'll see the students will not be intimidated. But many were intimidated. Workers students civil servants. This was the second technique. First the technique of propaganda and then together with the technique of intimidation.
This too was a universal technique applied at every level from the life of ordinary people to the functioning of the Czech and Slovak government. Even at the level of cabinet meetings. And that is only one item on the agenda. Today's cabinet meeting today we must decide whether Czechoslovakia will participate in the Paris conference to organize the plan. We communists ministers consider that this proposal is an American imperialist plan to gain the control of Europe. We know only that America is offering dollars and goods to help rebuild Europe. What do we have to lose. The Polish cabinet has decided. The invitation when the pope is going to Paris to discuss arrangements for the conference. We have our independence fellows I take it then the Communist ministers will vote to refuse the invitation and I didn't say that we need the money and machines. Good that is agreed the Czechoslovakia will participate in the Marshall Plan discussions.
I am. You have heard the news gentlemen. The Soviet Union has changed their position. The US has withdrawn from the Paris conference. Naturally the Soviet Union does not have to go begging to the imperialists happy in hand and what is likely to be Moscow's feeling about Iowa participation. I think the Soviet Union recognizes our special problems and needs. Then I suggest her message. Just on the withdrawal of Poland from the Paris conference has just been announced by the Moscow Radio. Now you mean the Polish made you know it was the Radio Moscow in that case I moved to Czechoslovakia withdraw acceptance of the invitation to participate in the Paris conference do not jump
until the mess puts up the cat from Czechoslovakia is a sovereign state free to make our own decisions. Nevertheless I think we must move cautiously. Prime Minister Goh told and foreign minister must look on leaving for Moscow tomorrow on another mission. They will raise the question of our participation in the awful plan. Foreign minister whose devotion to the principles of democracy was no less than that of his father the founder of the Czech and Slovak Republic sent a telegram from Moscow that cabinet must revoke decision to take part in Marshal Plan. Do not delay twice during the day while the cabinet was in session. Masaryk telephoned to repeat his urgent message when he returned from Moscow several days later. He brought a stenographic record of the conferences with Stalin and Molotov. These are the words of stopping the government of the USSR does not consider the
Paris plan is genuine and it has come to the conclusion that in reality it is solely a device for the isolation of the USSR. There was no consideration for Czechoslovakia as special problems and needs. We look upon this as a question of principle on which our friendship with Czechoslovakia depends. If you go to Paris you will prove that you wish to participate in an action designed to isolate the Soviet Union. Perhaps the warning was not clear enough. It was repeated by Stalin. If you take part in the conference you will prove by that act that you allow yourselves to be used as a tool against the Soviet Union. Neither the people nor the government of the USSR. What tolerate that now. It was clear. VOTE AS. In the conference of relations existing
between the government and the conference. I thought the streets were empty it was so quiet. But there are people many people. What is there for any of us to say I'm not here when the first Nazi soldiers marched into Prague. It was eight years ago wasn't it. The streets were crowded and so do you. We bought flowers then everyone bought flowers to put on the grave of the Unknown Soldier. You know what is it going to happen again. Only this time with the rush you mustn't talk like that Maria. We are still a free and independent nation. Within limits you know. The window where you close it please. You're cool.
Yes. No you don't. I'm afraid. Our program continues following a 10 second pause for station identification. You are listening to people transcribe
programs based on documented evidence and expert knowledge about the power and intentions of the Soviet Union. We continue now with conflict. Propaganda and intimidation techniques. Reluctantly but helplessly Czechoslovakia Poland Romania Hungary gave in to the Soviet threats and declined the invitation to take part in the Marshall Plan. France and Italy accepted and then these countries from 1947 and the strong communist minorities carried on a campaign against the plan using the same techniques propaganda and intimidation.
The government who sold us out they sold Italian freedom for American dollars. You talk about American dummy. What did your Soviet Union do voters. Oh did you read the newspapers. Don't you know how many thousands of tons of wheat the Soviet Union has promised us. I read the papers. But I also see the crates and boxes labeled USA the Marshall Plan medicine tools powdered milk powdered eggs food not promises.
- Series
- People under communism
- Producing Organization
- National Association of Educational Broadcasters
- Contributing Organization
- University of Maryland (College Park, Maryland)
- AAPB ID
- cpb-aacip/500-nz80qf26
If you have more information about this item than what is given here, or if you have concerns about this record, we want to know! Contact us, indicating the AAPB ID (cpb-aacip/500-nz80qf26).
- Description
- Episode Description
- This episode discusses how relations between former allies in World War 2 deteriorated and led to the Cold War.
- 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.
- Date
- 1952-12-27
- Topics
- Politics and Government
- Subjects
- Soldiers
- Media type
- Sound
- Duration
- 00:31:29
- Credits
-
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Advisor: Hoover Institute and Library on War, Revolution, and Peace
Advisor: Columbia University. Russian Institute
Advisor: Harvard University. Russian Research Center
Funder: Fund for Adult Education (U.S.)
Producing Organization: National Association of Educational Broadcasters
Speaker: Mosely, Philip E. (Philip Edward), 1905-1972
- AAPB Contributor Holdings
-
University of Maryland
Identifier: 52-38-6 (National Association of Educational Broadcasters)
Format: 1/4 inch audio tape
Duration: 01:02:11
If you have a copy of this asset and would like us to add it to our catalog, please contact us.
- Citations
- Chicago: “People under communism; Pattern of world conflict, part 2 of 2,” 1952-12-27, University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed December 25, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-nz80qf26.
- MLA: “People under communism; Pattern of world conflict, part 2 of 2.” 1952-12-27. University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. December 25, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-nz80qf26>.
- APA: People under communism; Pattern of world conflict, part 2 of 2. 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-nz80qf26