@CoQ_10 @sickburnbro Uh-huh, there’s nothing new under the sun. I wonder, though, what communists could he study, working all his life in Africa and England. I mean, what he (and his followers) imply, is that there was /an intention to humiliate/, that the propaganda was purposefully done this way. While in fact, after the boost given in the Civil war of 1918⁠–⁠1922, its power quickly dwindled down. In the presence of the “iron curtain” the officials got relaxed and cared about the propaganda only in terms of “portrait of Lenin is present, a quote from Stalin added, censorship is enforced” – the completing of requirements, which allowed their bosses, officials of a higher rank, to report “All is OK!” further up. In the Soviet Union propaganda was called ‘kondovaya’ – “thick”, “clumsy” (originally a term for construction timber) for a reason. The ingenuousness of communist propaganda was reflected also in the “Honecker’s letter”. In this address to Germans the author (which may or may not be the actual Honecker), reprimanded the former DDR citizens for being overly confident. They thought of themselves too high, “seeing through” the communist propaganda (which wasn’t hard), and thought that they know all about the West – while the West wasn’t telling all the truth then, as it doesn’t say it now. It’s in the line of the general “hope you’re happy with your Turks” message. On the West, however, there was always a demand in works that would portray Soviet system as the ultimate inhuman personality-suppressing evil. And that’s I’m not touching Dalrymple’s “Early Life” yet.
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