16 Jul, 2022 09:56
Zelensky, 2022, Stalin 1942: the US propaganda machine can easily make heroes, but it can quickly change the script
The US campaign to build public support for Ukraine harks back to a propaganda push lionizing Stalin’s Soviet regime during WWII
America’s sudden love affair with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and Kiev’s military forces is reminiscent of an old campaign to exalt a previous ally of geopolitical circumstance: Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.
Just as in the Georgian strongman's heyday, the US political establishment and media-entertainment complex have responded to a crisis in Eastern Europe by portraying their preferred combatants as heroic friends who must be supported. In fact, Zelensky and his country’s defenders have been painted as freedom fighters battling to save democracy from evil aggressors – even as Kiev bans opposition parties, shuts down media outlets, and otherwise silences critics of the regime.
For instance, outlets such as Newsweek and the Associated Press have touted Zelensky as a “defiant hero” and a “modern Churchill.” The comparison to former UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill wasn’t sufficiently glowing for CNN, which said Zelensky is a “more unlikely hero.”
After all, the liberal network argued, Churchill was “an imperialist rather than a pure believer in democracy.” Zelensky, despite taking such actions as arresting the main opposition party's leader and banning critical TV and online outlets, apparently qualifies as a greater democrat than a man who lost office, by the ballot box, shortly after his greatest victory.
Eight decades ago, Churchill and US President Franklin Roosevelt faced a similar challenge in trying to beautify the Western public image of Stalin, a hated enemy before Nazi leader Adolf Hitler broke a non-aggression pact by attacking the Soviet Union. As American historian Albert Marrin wrote in ‘A Time of Fear’, his 2021 book on the red scares before and after World War II, there was considerable public concern “over fighting one mass murderer with the help of another.” The joke back then was that the main difference between Stalin and Hitler was the size of their mustaches. “Otherwise, they were the same cold-blooded monsters,” Marrin said.
But the Allied powers deemed support for the Soviets advantageous to keep Axis forces deployed on the Eastern Front, where 90% of German casualties would be suffered, taking much of the heat off their own armies. The White House used its new Office of War Information (OWI) propaganda unit to burnish the Soviet regime’s image while providing $11.3 billion in wartime aid to the USSR, equivalent to nearly $190 billion in today’s dollars.
As in the current conflict, media outlets did much of the heavy lifting. Stalin was depicted as “Uncle Joe,” a trusted ally and brave leader. He appeared on the covers of major magazines, including three times on Time, which named the Georgian generalissimo its “Man of the Year” in January 1943.
Later that same year, Collier’s magazine did a cover story making the dubious claim that the USSR was evolving “toward something resembling our own and Great Britain’s democracy.” This was a half decade after the Great Purge, when Stalin wiped out somewhere in the region of a million people during an attempt to eliminate perceived political threats.
The New York Times agreed, asserting in 1944 that “Marxian thinking in Soviet Russia is out. The capitalist system, better described as the competitive system, is back.”…
Likewise, President Joe Biden and other US leaders have mocked the notion that Ukraine has a Nazi problem, typically citing Zelensky’s Jewishness as their proof. “Putin has the gall to say he is denazifying Ukraine,” Biden said in March. “This lie isn’t just cynical, it’s obscene.”
However, the fact is Ukraine incorporated neo-nazi militias, including the Azov Battalion, into its National Guard after the country’s democratically elected leadership was overthrown in a US-backed coup in 2014. Those fighters have been hailed for their alleged heroism in battling Russian forces, and Western outlets have amplified Azov propaganda, such as a falsely claimed chemical weapon attack in Mariupol. In fact, immediately after the Russian offensive began, Facebook altered its rules to allow users to praise the Neo-Nazis.
The new wave of apologism for openly fascist elements – Ukraine has statues, street names and public marches venerating WWII-era Nazi collaborators – follows years of US political rhetoric hyping fears of neo-Nazism. Democrats in Congress, including Representatives James Clyburn (South Carolina) and Jerry Nadler (New York), likened then-President Donald Trump to Hitler….
https://www.rt.com/russia/558778-us-campaign-stalin-regime/