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wah op. THE TECHNIQUES OF SOVIET PROPAGANDA . - What had to ha ’ The.t , the lazi the © is ness the ereduloua- a pusillanimity, the perpetual fickleness and ness of Western governments enabled Russia to ' gucceasively every one of her aims. . ” ; : oa Karl Marz, ut cate ge date New York Tribune, April 19, 1853. © Politica ts war without bloodshed. War is politics with Mao Tse-tung.. —. achieve —~ ee ert IMPORTANCE OF THE THEME In the West, people often say of this or that Soviet frenzy: “Oh, it’s only propaganda.” 0 his is a very dangerous reaction, for it is precisely when propaganda is concerned that the Soviets are most purposeful. The proliferation of representative governments has ushered the Western World into a primarily political era, in which molders of public opinion are more influential in the shaping of events than are industrial managers or military leaders. But by a strange and sig- nificant paradox, this crucially important evolution has been better comprehended by the enemies of democracy than by its patrons. any democratic statesmen are etill living in that past when popular opinion had little influence on authority, and matters of state were decided in chancelleries. But the totalitarians have recognized that where democracy rules, public opinion prevails. This is why those who trample it underfoot in their own domain court it ardently in the opposing camp, while those who respect it have abandoned it to enemy propaganda with only token opposition. This is why the Soviets regard propaganda as the primary theatre of cold war opera- tious. This is why a cold shoulder from the State Department matters little to Mr. Mikoyan when his welcome was warm at the Waldorf, for eventually the State Department, as a democratic institution, will dance to the Waldorf’s tune. From north to south and from east to west, it is committees, and not missiles, which smooth the road for the Kremlin. There were no Soviet missiles in Tokyo, yet the President of the United States was forced to cancel his visit because of several hundred dragon-dancin students, under the remote control of Moscow and Peiping. _Most o Laos fell to the Communists, while her SEATO allies busied them- selves counting their missiles, more because Washington and Paris, seduced by Soviet sophistries, delivered up their fnends Souvanna Phoumi and Boun Oum, than because of the strength of the enemy guerrillas. _ Iraq, although integrated into the expensive military network of the Baghdad Pact, was forced out of it by internal disorders fomented 1