The Nakedness of Propaganda

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22593, 24 December 1938, Page 16

The Nakedness of Propaganda

The world is left to judge whether a short cable message published the other day was the product of cynicism or stupidity. The Hungarian Foreign Minister has informed the Czech Minister that Hungary is ready to resume friendly relations, and for that reason press and radio attacks against the Czechs will cease. If this report is correct, the Hungarian Foreign Minister has gone a little further than any other present-day wielder of the propaganda weapon. That totalitarian and semi-totalitarian States swing press opinion backwards and forwards and use radio for propaganda purposes is well known, for which reason it is sometimes difficult to read with patience messages about improvements in foreign press comment on Britain. This improvement means only that the German Government or the Italian Government has seen fit to order iff there is no reflection of public opinion. British governments have borne this treatment with a forbearance that can be justified only by a long-view policy. But hitherto no statesman has publicly presented propaganda in so naked a guise as the Hungarian Minister, who has avowed that press and radio attacks have been used by his Government against a foreign State and that the Government is now ready to turn off the tap. The implication, of course, is that the tap may be turned on again if the occasion arises. This does not tell the world anything more than it already knew; blit it is interesting to speculate what the effect will be on the people of Hungary, if they are allowed to know that their Minister has been so brutally candid; that the attacks they have been reading and hearing are simply part of their Government’s policy. The question may be extended to the States that threaten the peace of the world. Is it possible to deceive the people of Germany for an indefinite period? Was Lincoln right or wrong when he said that you could not fool all the people all the time? The question is vitally important to democracy. According to nineteenth century idealism, such permanent deception was impossible. Man was a thinking animal and truth would prevail in the end. This age is not so sure. It is a little doubtful, not only of the intelligence of man but of his desire for truth. And it could be argued that if a people are willing to accept propaganda unquestioningly when they know from their leaders’ lips just why it was put forth, then they deserve nothing better than to be governed by autocrats and tyrants. Yet it is difficult to believe that men and women in any country will always submit to being led by the nose in this way, especially when the leading is likely to plunge them into war. If it must be believed that they are so willing, then the human spirit

must be despaired of. In a recent article Bertrand Russell sets out, as the most Important things to be taught to children, apart from ordinary subjects, scientific method, scepticism about propaganda, and a sense for the noncompetitive elements in human welfare. These are at least an excellent beginning. Scepticism about propaganda, he says, is vitally necessary, if democracy is to‘survive; and it may be reasonably assumed that it is partly because the British Government leans to such a belief that it uses propaganda with care and moderation. Propaganda is much more naturally the weapon of autocracy than of democracy; yet changed conditions require that democratic nations should state their case frequently and at some length. If they do not, judgment may be given against them by default. But the very scepticism for which Bertrand Russell pleads would make the true-blue totalitarian all the more resolved to overthrow democracy. It is a frame of mind that he not only distrusts and fears but hates, and his hate has all the intensity of religious fanaticism.