761.00/6–2848: Airgram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Smith) to the Secretary of State
A–633. The lead editorial in the June 22 Pravda, which was devoted to the seventh anniversary of the German attack on the USSR and entitled “The Mighty Soviet Victor-People,” provides a concise synthesis of that version of the Soviet Union’s part in the war and the post-war world which the Soviet Government presents to its people. Following paragraphs typify the chauvinistic cant which the present rulers of this country continue to inculcate into their people.
“…1 The great wartime ordeal has irrefutably shown the strength and deep vitality of the Soviet social and state order, its superiority over the capitalistic order; has shown the power, the high mastery and unsurpassed moral-political qaulities of the Soviet Army—its fighters and commanders, the indestructible unity of all the Soviet people. The test by war showed once more what a wise leader the Soviet people possesses in the person of its well-tried fighting vanguard—the glorious party of Lenin–Stalin, which has shown itself to be the unquenchable inspiration and organizer of all the forces of the people for the destruction of the enemy.
“… Both the four years of the war and the three years of the post-war peaceful construction point to one thing: the strength of the Soviet regime, the high moral qualities of Soviet people—workers, [Page 899] kolkhozniks,2 intelligentsia—the Bolshevik Party’s confident and wise leadership of our country along the glorious path outlined by the great Stalin …
“Seven years ago the Soviet people placed on the scales of history its sword and its truth. And it not only defended its own freedom and independence, but also saved all the peoples of the world from the threat of fascist enslavement, saved world civilization from destruction. Now we see our Fatherland in the vanguard of all democratic forces, struggling for lasting peace, for the people’s democracy, against the warmongers. Toward the Soviet Union are turned the eyes and the hopes of all humanity, which knows that the heroic Soviet victor people will do everything in its power to control those who have not profited by the lessons of Hitlerite Germany. With us are all the peoples of the earth who hate war, who long for the eradication of all remnants of fascism and for the establishment of a lasting peace, who believe that socialism and democracy are unvanquishable.”
It is an unfortunate fact that many Soviet people believe such rodomontade, not only because of a natural human vulnerability to flattery, but also because of the unavailability of any contrasting viewpoint which would permit balanced and rational conclusions. It is hardly surprising that chauvinism and self-exaltation should be increasing in the USSR; and it is a tribute to the good sense of the Russian people that the Embassy still finds among them evidences of a more objective outlook toward world affairs than that which the Soviet propaganda line is calculated to produce.