Afterword: The Role of Propaganda in the Cold War and Its Implications Today

Abstract

At the end of the Second World War, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin renewed his attempts to isolate the Soviet people from all contact with the outside world and to control as much as possible the information the world received about life inside the Soviet Union. He did this in order to maintain the illusory image of the Soviet Union portrayed in Soviet propaganda as a social utopia where all economic problems were being solved, where culture was allowed to flower, where freedom and justice prevailed, and where everyone was happy. As part of this propaganda campaign, the Soviet press and the media organizations it controlled throughout Europe relentlessly attacked the West. The West was portrayed as economically and socially unstable, and according to the Soviet media this instability was leading to a growing fascist movement. Soviet media outlets on numerous occasions reported that widespread anti-Jewish pogroms were occurring throughout Britain.

Democracies should not be ashamed of selling democracy. Democracies purport to represent consensus through persuasion, they respect individual human rights, freedom of opinion and freedom of expression, and when they have the courage of their convictions, they oppose those who deny these right. They are not faultless, nor, as we have seen, are they beyond using “dirty tricks”—especially in wars against their enemies. But since their enemies are invariably non-democracies or non-democratic factions, they sometimes have to fight fire with fire.

Phillip M. Taylor, British Propaganda in the Twentieth Century (1999), p. 260.