Mind-Munitions

The Second World War 237
the danger zones. Stalingrad (1943), released less than six weeks
after the German surrender, was one such seven-reel example with
its stunning combat footage, realistic portrayal of street fighting,
maps and diagrams, and the surrender of the German commander,
von Paulus. With this vital turning point in the war Soviet propaganda
had more to shout about, but film remained a largely urban
phenomenon. The agit-trains accordingly once again took the
message to the rural peasants. In the towns, posters took on a new
lease of life. The old Civil War format of ROSTA (now TASS)
windows was repeated with cartoon and caricatures being both
popular and effective. Relations with the Russian Orthodox
Church were patched up to help the domestic campaign and
provide the patriotic cause with a ‘holy’ theme, while Soviet radio
stations kept up the stream of State controlled information and
exhortation. In order to smooth external relations, the Comintern
was closed down although anti-Nazi groups and resistance movements
were fostered with the aid of radio. All in all, Soviet wartime
propaganda proved remarkably adept at improvisation and flexibility,
but then this was necessary if the difficult problem of the
subject nationalities was to be glossed over in favour of patriotic
resistance. Ideology and internal dissent were therefore subordinated
to the business of national survival. Once the tide had turned,
and the battle lines of post-war conflict were beginning to be drawn
up, the Soviet propaganda machinery had, once again, to make an
about turn that would make the 1939-41 period look tame by
comparison.
The Russians declared war on Japan after the first American
atomic bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima. With the war in
Europe over, the time had come to ensure that Soviets were in at
the kill in any Far Eastern settlement. Before then, however, the decision
of the Japanese government to attack the United States in 1941
rather than the Soviet Union had not only enabled the Russians to
concentrate solely on the defence of their western frontier, it had
also allowed them to focus their efforts on the propaganda front
against the Hitlerite menace. The attack on Japan in August 1945
came as a surprise to most of the Russian population; they had not
been psychologically prepared for it. The Japanese, on the other
hand, must have thought that their pre-Pearl Harbor fears about
the communist menace had been justified. But it had been some
time since the menace of communism had been given priority;