For years, Americans considered the Soviets as their enemies due to their threat to America’s technology, warfare, and communism. Americans were all about individualism. They accepted the pace of technological development in which they had. However, the media, such as “Reader’s Digest,” “Time,” and “Life” told one-sided stories about the Soviets. The United States of America employed terror and fear on the Soviet Union to make the citizens and their allies cut ties with the Soviets. The primary article “Conspiracy Theories and Rumours as Key Elements of Political Propaganda: The Cold War in the USA and Czechoslovakia in the 1950s” by Panczová, Zuzana has photo illustrations of the fears of American and Soviet n’s true intentions. The same is illustrated in the secondary source “American Nightmare: Images of Brainwashing, Thought Control, and Terror in Soviet Russia” by David A. Smith, which employs various sources to prove the conspiracies. An analysis of sources in the articles sheds light on the Soviet side of the story, making Soviets seem that it is not the enemy set by the American media.
The secondary source, “American Nightmare: Images of Brainwashing, Thought Control, and Terror in Soviet Russia” by David A. Smith, illustrates the paranoia which the American media instilled in people about the Soviets. The article strives to give both accounts of the stories and other sources which show how the American media painted the Soviets and other sources which show the complete opposite of the Soviets and its relationship with the United States of America. The article notes that the history of the Cold War where the Cold War started following Stalin’s purges during World War II. The American media shows that the United States of America and the Soviets were enemies before World War II. The Cold War then developed after World War II, when the United States made steps to taint USSR and cause a crisis in its political and economic structure that other countries may cut ties with USSR.
Nonetheless, the article involves sources that portray both sides of the Soviet n and American stories. Smith (2010) writes that “Americans became increasingly convinced that in the USSR, as nowhere else in history, the state had taken everything under its control” (p. 219). The magazine tainted Soviet communism by showing that people in the USSR suffered, watched and vanished for talking against the government. The articles showed that the Soviets forcefully put more than 22,000,000 men in the Nazi slave camps (Smith, 2010). It showed how the USSR extended its control on countries like Poland and Yugoslavia, which became laborers to the Soviet Union’s system. The American media painted a particular picture of the Soviet Union, which many people internalized.
Americans had internalized the daunting images of Soviets that they had forgotten about America’s atomic warfare, cultural homogenization, and the depression. Sources like Robin Fillmore’s “Transforming the Enemy” highlight that the United States of America and Soviets were not enemies after World War II. Furthermore, America targeted another powerful country to create a smokescreen for its domestic problem (Smith, 2010). One magazine, “Galaxy Science Fictions,” showed its concerns about the actualization of atomic bombs in the United States, a fiction scenario to the editors and their readers. Another article by Patricia Warrick, “The Cybernetic Imagination in Science Fiction,” shows how the government would be able to suppress its citizens through the development of technology (Smith, 2010). Nonetheless, America is a country based on individualism; and that is why it abhorred Soviet communism, but the introduction of technology would lead to cultural homogenization. Nonetheless, America was still experiencing the lingering effects of World War I and World War II on its finances and felt threatened by Soviet Union’s prosperity. Therefore, America was hyper-focused on USSR’s communism to deviate attention from their struggles and upcoming problems.
The secondary source takes a conventional interpretation of the topic through analysis of other sources. It proves how the United States of America used its media to paint how the Soviets treated its people, a gimmick to wage war on Soviets’ economic and political development. Additionally, it illustrates what the United States of America barely showed on its media and its citizens discovered while the country’s media only tainted the Soviet’s image. Sources such as an Article by Ada Siegel, “American Mercury,” explain the United States cruelty in its association with atomic warfare, cultural homogenization, and financial issues (Smith, 2010). Smith barely gives his account or personal experience concerning the topic. Instead, he depends on other sources to prove that the United States of America employed its media to taint the Soviet’s image during the Cold War, a smokescreen for its pending problems.
Nevertheless, in the primary source “Conspiracy Theories and Rumours as Key Elements of Political Propaganda: The Cold War in the USA and Czechoslovakia in the 1950s” by Panczová, Zuzana incorporates images that help uncover the conspiracy theories the United States of America used in tainting Soviet’s image. A case in point is an image of a newsletter, “Is This Tomorrow: America under Communism” by Israel Escamilla, an anti-communist pamphlet used to scare Americans about the Communist Party in their country. The historical context of this newsletter is after the Cold War, and the writer is trying to warn Americans to be wary of communists who may be living among them (Panczová, 2021). Based on a conspiracy theory about Communist Party members, the newsletter uncovers the techniques whereby the Communist Party rose to power in the USA, noting that they took advantage of the financial crisis. Moreover, under the guise of forming a front against totalitarianism or prejudice, the communist party gained support from the mainstream press and some well-known figures. Panczová (2021) notes, “A single year was enough for the Communists to obtain power” (p. 29). The newsletter says that while tensions sparked a social crisis, the soviets assisted Communists in gaining power. This newsletter is one of the means by which the American media used to scare people about the Soviet ns.
The primary source and the secondary source relate to each other with other. In contrast, other sources in the secondary source affirm the fact that the American media posed fear on Soviet ns deliberately. In David Smith’s piece, he sues sources to uncover how Americans focused on creating fear against the Soviets that no one would want to be associated with them. America used magazines such as Digest that wrote about how the Soviets forced control over its people and neighboring countries and how its intentions were global. Panczová, Zuzana also highlights a newsletter by Israel Escamilla, the primary source, which intends to make Americans vigilant about the Communist Party’s rise to power and that it set base in the United States. Escamilla notes that Hungary and Poland were victims of the same rise of the Communist Party and that America would become laborers to the union. After sources painted a horrific image of what it would be like associating with the Soviet ns, Americans and other countries would become mortified if the Soviets influenced them. However, David’s sources show that America used this tactic to divert attention from the country’s impending problems.
References
Panczová, Z. (2021). Conspiracy Theories and Rumours as Key Elements of Political Propaganda: The Cold War in the USA and Czechoslovakia in the 1950s. In Forum Historiae. Časopis a portál pre históriu a príbuzné spoločenské vedy (Vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 25-37). Historický ústav SAV.
Smith, D. A. (2010). American nightmare: images of brainwashing, thought control, and terror in Soviet Russia.