Being Soviet: Identity, Rumour, and Everyday Life Under Stalin 1939-1953 (14 page)

^34
Pravda
carried as many positive stories about the Western powers as it did about the Germans in this period (an average of 0.02 pages per day).

^35
Pravda
, 28.09.1940, p. 5; 30.09.1940, p. 1.

10
Being Soviet

provided almost no coverage of life inside Germany itself and showed
little enthusiasm for German culture. On occasion it even adopted a combative tone in relation to German foreign policy. In September 1940 the paper published Foreign Ministry (NKID) and TASS declara- tions criticizing Germany for applying pressure on Romania and deny- ing that the USSR had offered to make Romania its protectorate.
^36
As
one respondent to HIP remembered, ‘We were forbidden in school to use the word “fascist” . . . Yet at the same time friendliness towards the Germans was not encouraged.’
³⁷

The Soviet press continued to publish anti-Anglo-French articles
after June 1940 but their vitriolic tone waned. Molotov repeated his warning about British designs on Baku, and British imperialism or American militarism remained objects of denunciation and derision.
^{38
April 1941 also saw the release of the film}
The Girl from the Other Side
, in which an Iranian girl helped Soviet authorities unmask a British agent attempting to engage in anti-Soviet subversion.
^{39
However, anti-Anglo-}
French stories took up only 0.04 pages per edition of
Pravda
, from June 1940 onwards compared with a previous average of 0.33. Indeed, on some occasions, the Soviet press adopted an almost positive view of the Western Allies. Churchill’s speeches, promising to fight on against the odds, were given up to half a page of newsprint, and British claims to be winning the Battle of Britain were published alongside German accounts.
^{40
In February 1941 TASS went even further, publishing a}
journalist’s account of his night in a London anti-aircraft battery. The article offered a sympathetic and intimate portrait of the young men, many of them Trade Union members, who were fighting for British survival.
^41
Meanwhile
Ogon¨ek
published dreamy pieces about London as a historic fortress city on the Thames.
^{42
Such articles were rare,}

however, and the Soviet posture of studied neutrality was typified
by the launch of a new
Ogon¨ek
feature in January 1941 entitled ‘War Diary’. The first five articles, by I. Ermashev, assessed the tactical

^36
Pravda
, 13.09.1940, p. 2; 14.09.1940, p. 2.

^{37
HIP. A. 34, 494, 30.}

^38
Pravda
, 02.08.1940, p. 1; 10.10.1940, p. 4;
Ogon¨ek
, 06.1940: 16, p. 8; 07.1940: 20,

p. 22.

^{39
S. Drobashenko and P. Kenez, ‘Film Propaganda in the Soviet Union, 1941–1945:}
Two Views’, in K. Short, ed.,
Film and Radio Propaganda in World War II
(London, 1983), 112.

^40
Pravda
, 05.06.1940, p. 8; 26.06.1940, p. 5; 12.09.1940, p. 6.

^41
Pravda
11.02.1941, p. 5.

^42
Ogon¨ek
, 10.1940: 28.

The Liberator State? 1939–41
11

situation in Albania, North Africa, Abyssinia, the Mediterranean, and
at sea.
^{43
These professional reviews of the global tactical situation}
expressed an air of interested detachment that reflected the USSR’s position outside of the ongoing conflict.

The wisdom of the Soviet Union in remaining outside of the
European carnage remained at the heart of Official Soviet Identity in this period.
Ogon¨ek
regularly carried dramatic photographs of battle- field destruction and urban bombing to remind its readers of the horrors of war and the virtues of the Stalinist peace policy.
^44
As
Pravda
’s annual review on New Year’s Eve 1940 explained, the policy of ‘neutrality and peace’ had preserved the physical integrity of the USSR and bolstered its moral authority within the international community.
⁴⁵

However beyond this peaceful posture, the content of Official Soviet
Identity began to lose its shape in this period. Between June 1940 and the end of March 1941
Pravda
published twenty-nine separate de- nials—nearly three a month—from TASS, rebutting allegations made in the foreign press. Of these statements fourteen denied that the USSR had acted to undermine Germany and German foreign policy; eight of them denied that the USSR had colluded with Germany and German foreign policy. For example, on 15 October 1940 TASS denied that the USSR was negotiating with Greece, Turkey, and Britain to halt German expansion into the Balkans. The following day, however, it rebutted the allegation that the Soviet Union had colluded in German plans to move troops into Romania.
^{46
This cycle of two-way denial was symptomatic}
of a wider fragmentation of Official Soviet Identity in this period.
^47
The
slogans for the November 1940 anniversary of the Revolution had little to say about the relationship between the USSR and the outside world other than to appeal to proletarian solidarity and class brotherhood.
^{48
When Molotov visited Berlin in November 1940, the press could point}
to no concrete outcomes other than the dinners and meetings he attended.
^{49
It was unclear whether he had travelled in order to heal a}

^43
Ogon¨ek
, 01–02.1941: 1–5, pp. 10–13.

^44
Ogon¨ek
, 09.1940: 27, p. 3; 01.1941: 1, pp. 10–11.

^45
Pravda
, 31.12.1940, p. 1.

^46
Pravda
, 15.10.1940, p. 2; 16.10.1940, p. 2.

^{47
It also reflected some of the tensions generated by the dual audience of the Soviet}
press, domestic and international.

^48
Pravda
, 04.11.1940, p. 1.

^49
Pravda
, 13–16.11.1940, p. 1.

12
Being Soviet

rift or build an alliance.
^{50
Having abandoned collective security in}
August 1939, and with the German relationship cooling, the USSR began to look increasingly isolated within the international community by the start of 1941.

The period after 1940 also saw a rise in boasting about the military
might of the Red Army. The Pact Period witnessed the pre-war peak of the militarization of Soviet public life. May Day, Navy Day, Air Force Day, and Red Army Day were marked by ostentatious parades that were intended to reassure their audience about the capacity of Soviet forces.
^{51
A reorganization of the highest ranks of the Red Army and Navy during}
1940 provided the pretext for page after page of portraits of senior Soviet generals.
^{52
Meanwhile the press extolled the rich history of}
Russian military success culminating in the recent Finnish War.
⁵³

However, these reassuring tones sat uneasily alongside a number of
other stories from this era. First, the operative
svodki
during the first couple of months of the Finnish War were notable for their brevity, often amounting to nothing more than a couple of lines of text.
^54
Pre-war
cartoons had depicted the tiny Finns being crushed by the Soviet boot, but once the war began
Pravda
was forced to publish official denials that the Red Army was facing defeat. Second, the official mass media began to warn elliptically of the danger that the European war might spill over into the USSR. For example, none of the thirty-five films produced during 1940 featured a domestic traitor: the threat to the USSR always appeared in the form of a foreign spy.
^{55
As a Red Army Political}
Education Manual produced in early 1941 explained, the soldiers must have at the centre of their understanding ‘the thought about the inevita- bility of a conflict of the USSR with the capitalist world’.
^{56
Third, in the}
summer of 1940, the Red Army began a major and widely publicized tactical review, the necessity for which cast doubt on its current abilities.
^{57
Fourth, a harsh new labour law was issued in June 1940 lengthening the}
work day and ordering custodial sentences for workers who arrived late

^{50
See: Werth,}
Russia At War
, 106–9.

^51
Ogon¨ek
, 02.1940: 4, p. 1;
Pravda
, 18.08.1940, p. 1.

^52
e.g.
Pravda
, 05.06.1940, pp. 1–3; 06.06.1940, pp. 2, 3, 5.

^53
Ogon¨ek
, 09.1940: 26, p. 13.

^54
Pravda
, 02.03.1940, p. 1; 03.03.1940, p. 1.

^{55
P. Kenez, ‘The Image of the Enemy in Stalinist Films’, in, S. M. Norris and}

Z. M. Torlone, ed.,
Insiders and Outsiders in Russian Cinema
(Bloomington, 2008), 104.

^{56
RGASPI f. 17, op. 125, d. 27, ll. 1–54.}

^57
Pravda
, 22.08.1940, p. 1; 22.09.1940, p. 1–3; 20.03.1940, p. 3.

The Liberator State? 1939–41
13

or attempted to move jobs without permission.
^{58
Finally, three days after}
the publication of the labour law, the news broke about the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Bukovina, two Romanian provinces at the mouth of the Danube. Tactical retraining, the occupation of new territories and worker mobilization were intended to reassure readers that the USSR was properly prepared for any future conflict. However, when set against the blanket of silence surrounding the Finnish front and the dark threats of coming war, they created an impression of official anxiety rather than confidence. The tensions between calls for produc- tivity and boasts of might were sometimes recognized by Soviet propa- gandists who complained that ‘hurrah patriotism’ and talk of the Red Army as a ‘shattering force’ weakened the ‘fighting spirit’ of the sol- diers.
^{59
Just as the Official Soviet Identity of the USSR as a diplomatic}
force became increasingly unclear, so the balance between reassuring might and war preparation became ever more uneasy.