Title: What Russians Think of Americans | Foreign Affairs
Headings: What Russians Think of Americans
What Russians Think of Americans
By Frederick C. Barghoorn
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Content: The attempt to deflate the prestige of western culture and civilization has been accompanied by a more somber propaganda line in which "American imperialism" has been substituted for German Fascism as the chief symbol of evil and danger. The Russian people are told in a hundred ways that they must regard America as a potential enemy, and that the American people are wage slaves of capitalists and dupes of a corrupt culture which by escapist films, jazz and pulp magazines poisons their minds and distracts their attention from the realities of the class struggle, i.e., from their own interest in precipitating a revolution. The recent reincarnation of the Comintern as the "Cominform" signalizes the intention of the Soviet leaders to wage this propaganda war without compunction. The truthful information about America reaching the Soviet public today is a trickle compared to this roaring ocean of denunciation and vilification. A promising beginning of an effective information program coördinated with American foreign policy -- the "Voice of America" -- aroused keen and favorable interest among Russian listeners, but was curtailed by budget cuts in 1947. It may be said in general that the Soviet public has been conditioned to take radio programs which would seem heavy to many Americans; much of the criticism of the State Department broadcasts to Russia seems to have overlooked this fact. But the underlying objection to the program was, perhaps, the conviction that the United States Government simply should not be active in this field at all. A marked change of tone in the comments of Congressmen recently returned from Europe seems to indicate that this view has been modified under the pressure of events, and that the appropriation for such a program will be increased. This surely is to be desired, and it may be useful for an American lately returned from four years in the U.S.S.R. to try to suggest, a little more in detail, what the attitude of the Russian people toward America and Americans is, as a contribution to the problem of working out an expanded information program.