THE PROPAGANDA EFFORT FROM MOSCOW

Wanganui Chronicle, 5 July 1950, Page 4

THE PROPAGANDA EFFORT FROM MOSCOW

TT is too early yet to decide the purpose of the propaganda effort 1 that is now being prosecuted in Moscow concerning the Korean situation. Russia has the alternatives of either going in further, which means throwing off her present disguise, or of maintaining the disguise and keeping her name cut of the picture as much as possible. If the first course is pursued then it is to be expected that a strong propaganda effort will precede any overt act on the part, of the Soviet Union. The obstacles incidental to the conduct of an external war would have to be overcome, not the least of these being the psychological aversion to such an excursion in the minds of the Russian people. They have for too long been nurtured in the belief that the capitalistic world is planning an attack upon the Workers’ Paradise which exists in the territories of modern Russia. It will consequently come as a surprise to them to find their own country going outside Soviet territory to engage in a war which, from their own standpoint, has nothing to do with themselves. It follows that the propaganda machine cannot retail the facts to the Russian public: so a properly conditioned “case” must be prepared. At the moment this has not been done, the usual claptrap about Capitalist aggression and the inner clique in Wall Street dominating the situation being the ordinary pro-duction-line material. This absence of the special ease might indicate that the Kremlin has been to some extent taken by surprise by American action. It is obvious enough- that the Americans had not armed to the teeth the soldiers of Southern Korea nor had she prepared the way for a resistance to the attack to any advanced degree. The Soviet Union when it launched the North against the South could have expected a speedy victory and presenting the world with yet another fait accompli. -Despite the successes of the North it is most probable that the attack has not as yet gone according to plan. This has created a new situation for which the Kremlin was not prepared and its new line of action has consequently not yet been resolved. Meanwhile the propaganda machine is safe in denouncing American aggression. Such a course

commits the Soviet Union to nothing yet puts no barriers in th; way of Russian intervention in this alleged civil war in Korea.