9

In no other epoch have there been such marked and -3 farreaching changes as in ours. This is only natural because our epoch witnesses history’s most momentous changes linked with the transition from the millennia-old rule of the exploiting classes to socialism and communism, with the transition from prehistory to mankind’s real history. "Mankind,” it was recorded by the International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties held in Moscow in June 1969, "has entered the last third of our century in a situation marked by a sharpening of the historic -5 struggle between the forces of progress and reaction, between socialism and imperialism. This clash is world-wide and embraces all the basic spheres of social life: economy, -4 politics, ideology and culture."  [9•* 

A scientific and technological revolution, which, in its turn, powerfully influences economics, politics, people’s minds and international relations, is unfolding parallel with and under the impact of the radical social changes taking place in the world.

The character of the epoch determines not only the scale but also the speed of the changes. Less than half a century ago Lenin wrote of the "tremendous acceleration of world development”,  [9•**  which formed a contrast even in -7 comparison with the past century. But in comparison with our 10 day history’s progress of even a few decades ago may be described as having been slow.

Swift, radical transformations are taking place in all spheres of social life, giving rise to many totally new -3 phenomena. International relations are no exception. With the appearance of socialism the social substance of -5 international relations has undergone a fundamental -8 modification. Whereas formerly they were the arena in which various national contingents of one and- the same class or socially homogeneous (exploiting) classes came into conflict, in our day they are the arena of the class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, between the two main classes of the contemporary epoch. Whereas only a few decades ago the subject of "big policy”, which determined the course and principal direction of international -4 relations, constituted a handful of so-called civilised nations, the disintegration of the colonial empires has brought many new states into the channel of this policy, involving in international relations not a minority but the overwhelming majority of mankind. At the same time there has been an unprecedented growth of the role played by the masses in foreign policy. The change of the balance of strength in favour of socialism and the development of nuclear- missile -3 weapons have posed the problem of war and peace in an entirely new way.

Among the changes is the immense qualitative growth of the role played by ideological propaganda in -11 international relations. This is an outcome of contemporary -5 international relations. It has brought to life new methods and instruments of foreign policy, given prominence to new diplomatic tasks and engendered new directions for foreign policy.

p These changes receive considerable attention from -4 bourgeois politicians and propagandists. We do not mean those who may be regarded, so to speak, as professionals in the world-wide war of ideas.  [10•*  In recent years the ideological 11 INTRODUCTION ") struggle in international relations has begun to receive due attention even from those who in foreign policy would have preferred to rely on other, traditional means and methods, above all on military strength. This may be illustrated by citing R. Strausz-Hupe, W. Kintner and S. Possony, prominent representatives of the extreme Right wing of United States political science, who admit that " psychological strategy and the systematic rise of propaganda influences, and at times influences decisively, international action".  [11•* 

p Had this statement been made some 20-30 years ago its authors would have been credited with keen foresight. Today it is almost banal, for what it says is quite obvious and has become a major feature of the present epoch with its specific international relations, and methods and instruments of foreign policy.

p Perhaps the first thing that strikes the eye in this connection is that all the big (and many medium and small) countries have gone over to organised and systematic foreign political propaganda. The very appearance of this term in political jargon is in itself indicative.

p One could, of course, argue about the modern meaning of the term "foreign political propaganda".  [11•**  Other terms are also used “(international propaganda”, "international information”, "psychological warfare" and so on), but this does not change the main thing, namely, the appearance and rapid development of a new weapon of foreign policy and 12 diplomacy which owes its birth to the enhanced significance of ideological propaganda in international relations.

p Foreign political propaganda has reached a scale that would have been regarded as fantastic only recently. It has become a profession for tens of thousands of people, while the expenditures of the leading states on this sphere of activity are running into many hundreds of millions and even billions of dollars. (The true figure, naturally, comes to light indirectly. President Lyndon B. Johnson remarked to a group of US propaganda chiefs that "the government was spending almost a billion dollars on people like them and they better start earning it".  [12•* )

p Traditional instruments of foreign policy, notably diplomacy, are likewise being adapted to the ideological struggle. Diplomacy has assumed new functions which would have seemed incredible some fifty years ago. Noting this, StrauszHupe wrote early in the 1950s: "In diplomacy, the task is no longer to anticipate a move by the opponent, but to anticipate its effect upon the psychology of the masses, one’s own and the opponent’s. This is the meaning of ’direct’ and ’open’ diplomacy, a contest for mass opinion in which the techniques of propaganda, commercial advertising, and allied arts are more important than the techniques of diplomacy proper and the concrete diplomatic issue."  [12•** 

p This is, of course, a simplified and one-sided assessment of modern diplomacy generally and of “open” diplomacy in particular. But it makes a number of important new points, which are indeed typical of present-day diplomacy: many foreign policy acts, pronouncements by statesmen and diplomats, diplomatic documents, negotiations, the work of international conferences and organisations, and even traditional methods of diplomatic practice such as the recognition of countries, the rupture or establishment of relations and so forth, are largely and sometimes chiefly directed at influencing the public mind in one’s own and other countries.

p The “ideologisation” of international relations has another major aspect, but it concerns not the means and methods 13 of struggle between states but the very content of these relations in our epoch. This is the steadily deeper ^eciprdeal penetration of ideology and foreign policy—two important spheres of political relations, which had formerly not been so closely connected and mutually dependent.

p As soon as this fact caught their attention some Western researchers began to say that ideological propaganda had become a cause of international conflicts, a factor determining modern foreign policy. One cannot agree with this. Today, as tens and hundreds of years ago, underlying the struggles and conflicts in the world are, above all, the economic and socio-political interests of the ruling classes. The fact that more frequently than before these classes have recourse to a propaganda screen “(struggle against communism" and "defence of the values of Western civilisation, democracy and freedom”) and mask the utterly prosaic fear of the monopolies for their investments, and their interest in sources of raw materials and markets is the other side of the coin. As a matter of fact, even long centuries ago the fable about delivering the Holy Land from the hands of infidels or of saving "lost souls" by converting other peoples into the "true faith" masked the piratical aims of the Crusaders in the East.

p Where the source of contradictions is the economic or political interest of the ruling bourgeoisie it is compelled more frequently than before to resort to a propaganda cover for its traditional policy. But this is not the main thing.

p A specific of our epoch is that in relation to the general ideological picture of the world and of world affairs foreign policy is being regarded more and more by both its subjects and its “objects” from the angle of the major ideas and ideological conflicts that have become the factor moulding public opinion.

For that very reason many of the actions that have become usual for imperialist powers and which conform to the age-old “traditions” of the exploiters—such as the aggression in Vietnam or the “minor” police action of the USA in the Dominican Republic—are today regarded by hundreds of millions of people as disgraceful not only for the United States but for capitalist foreign policy and the capitalist social system as such.

14

p Moreover, many present-day problems of international relations are becoming essentially ideological problems. The fact is that we are witnessing a world-wide collision of the two basic classes of modern society representing the two social systems—the capitalist class and the proletariat, who are locked not only in an economic and political but also in an ideological struggle. The ideological struggle and even the forms in which it is waged can influence international relations, give rise to specific political conflicts and determine the course of individual developments. This has been illustrated by the experience of the cold war, the consequences of imperialism’s acts of ideological subversion and of its subversive propaganda.

p Such, in general outline, are the principal manifestations of the war of ideas in international relations. They are extremely important both from the theoretical and the practical political points of view.

p The new phenomena in international relations could not fail to be noted by Marxist science, while many of them were first spotted and studied by Marxists. This is quite natural because the founders of Marxism-Leninism had evolved not only the method but also the basic principles for the study of ideological and political processes. This gave the key for analysing a given problem under different historical conditions.

p As it develops the ideological struggle in international relations, as other major phenomena in social life, posed and continues to pose the Marxist-Leninist science of society with new tasks in creative research. The conditions for such research have become extremely favourable: the dogmatic, stagnant trends, springing from the personality cult, and manifestations of subjectivism have been surmounted, and theoretical Marxist thought has marked further great progress.

p The decisions of the 20th-24th congresses of the CPSU and the documents of international meetings of Communist and Workers’ parties have provided a reliable foundation for the further study of questions linked with the ideological struggle in international relations and have formulated or concretised a number of fundamental propositions applicable to the modern epoch. Moreover, they have set researchers important tasks and showed that it was necessary 15 to concentrate increasing theoretical effort in this sphere. This was underscored by the 24th Congress of the CPStL which focussed considerable attention on questions of ideology and the ideological struggle.

p This work, naturally, cannot claim to be an exhaustive analysis of all the problems of the war of ideas in presentday international relations. Such a task would require the efforts of many scholars. The author has, therefore, concentrated on a limited range of problems, selecting those that are most important from the standpoint of theory and political practice. His analysis covers chiefly:

p problems of the theory of present-day international relations linked with new phenomena, which determine the enhanced role of the ideological struggle in foreign policy;

p the salient features of imperialist propaganda in the international arena, its doctrine, methods and organisation;

p some problems of the ideological struggle of the socialist countries linked, in particular, with the policy of peaceful coexistence of states with different social systems.

p Attention is centred mainly on the ideological struggle between imperialism and socialism as being of the greatest consequence to the war of ideas in the world as a whole. Other major channels of this struggle, linked in particular with the downfall of colonial empires and the emergence on the historical scene of peoples who have been oppressed by imperialism, are necessarily considered only in connection with the principal ideological conflict in the modern world. Partly, this also concerns the ideological struggle in the imperialist camp. Lastly, although the author has had to deal with the divergences in the world revolutionary movement, they too belong to the problems of the ideological struggle which are not "the central subject of study in this book.

p In the ideological struggle socialism and capitalism have diverse and, one may even say, antithetic sources of strength. In one case they are the subjective efforts of a historically outworn class that possesses extensive material potentialities and experience. In the other, they are objective processes of social development. But this does not mean that in the ideological struggle the Communist parties and the socialist countries can rely on the objective processes of 16 social development taking their natural course. The ideological struggle is a sphere of social life where very much depends on how capably and skilfully the objective economic and socio-political processes are utilised.

p That explains why the Communist parties attach so much significance to improving their ideological work and set their ideological workers, scholars and propagandists responsible tasks in propagating the Marxist-Leninist teaching and combating bourgeois ideology.

p A point to be noted is that the bourgeois researchers who have devoted many scores of books and papers to a study of Soviet propaganda usually assess it very highly ( sometimes engaging in fantastic speculations regarding Soviet propaganda’s means and potentialities).

True, behind these assessments one must discern attempts to offer some explanation for the failures suffered by imperialist propaganda, for its setbacks in the struggle for people’s minds (sometimes this conceals another, purely utilitarian aim—that of justifying the demands for more allocations for Western foreign political propaganda). However, these assessments are, at the same time, a forced admission of the successes scored by the Soviet Union and other socialist countries and by the fraternal Communist parties in their struggle for the triumph of the ideals of socialism, against imperialist ideology.

p In addition to theory, the war of ideas in international relations has a history of its own.

p Ideology and the war of ideas emerged together with classes, the class struggle and statehood. The ideological struggle became one of the most important spheres of sociopolitical relations in society thousands of years ago. The ruling classes had long ago begun to use ideology and propaganda in their foreign policy. But for a long time these were only isolated cases. In order to make the ideological struggle part, let alone an important part, of international relations there had to be the corresponding prerequisites determining both the need for exercising an ideological influence on the population (or definite groups of the population) in other countries and the practical possibility of 17 exercising such influence, the possibility for the ideological penetration of the state frontiers of other countries.

p The individual cases where this need and possibility arose in the past help us to gain a better understanding of modern times, when both the need and possibility have become a feature of the entire system of international relations. In the literature on this subject there are essential differences regarding the dating of the first steps in this sphere, particularly foreign political propaganda. Some scholars are inclined to see an unbroken succession and to regard the present role and scale of the ideological struggle in international relations only as a purely quantitative development. The Austrian historian Alfred Sturminger, for instance, considers that "in the modern sense of the word, organised political propaganda (on the international level as well.— G.A.) has been in existence for millennia".  [17•*  Others give a much later date, the Napoleonic wars  [17•**  or, more frequently, the birth of “open” diplomacy, i.e., the end of the First World War  [17•***  as the beginning of systematic organised foreign political propaganda. Still others hold that in international relations (excluding wartime conditions) the ideological struggle began only after the Second World War.  [17•**** 

Their arguments and counter-arguments bear no particular relation to the subject dealt with in this book. The important thing is to understand precisely under what social and political conditions the ideological struggle acquired a sufficiently noteworthy scale in the past. Even a quick historical scrutiny made from this angle will be quite instructive because with rare exceptions almost all the historical episodes referred to by students of propaganda boil down to three situations:

18

p first, a war situation: not any war but a war fought by relatively large armies and, in one way or another, drawing into its vortex a more or less considerable portion of the population of one’s own country, of the enemy and allied countries and even of neutral countries;

p second, a situation in which to conquer another country it is necessary to ensure a definite behaviour of its population and some form of relations with it (assimilation, relations of dependence, or direct subjugation);

p third, a situation springing from a revolution: not any revolution but chiefly one that, having broken out in one country, can spread to other countries by virtue of a community of social problems (which, on the one hand, forces the governments of neighbouring countries to look for ways of strangling the revolution or at least preventing it from spreading, and, on the other, compels the revolutionary governments to strive to influence the rear of their adversaries by disseminating revolutionary ideas).

p As regards the first of these situations—wars and conquests—they witnessed the earliest examples of the use of foreign political propaganda dating back to antiquity (the preaching of Pan-Hellenism and its use by Philip II, Alexander the Great and others) and, particularly, to the Middle Ages, when religion became a weapon not only of internal but of foreign policy. This was especially typical of wars, mainly those that required the creation of large international coalitions or the participation of broad sections of the population, and not only of mercenaries (the most striking examples are the crusades organised in the llth-13th centuries by a number of European feudal states and the Roman Catholic Church, and the Thirty Years’ and other “religious” wars).

p Besides giving wars ideological “backing”, ideological propaganda was, already in feudal times, used as a means of spiritually “developing” conquered territory through the indoctrination of the population or of penetrating other countries in order to facilitate their subsequent conquest. The two major religions of that epoch—Christianity and Islam—were most efficaciously adapted (to be more exact, had been adapted after they had become state religions) for the fulfilment of this function. The very idea of converting—forcibly, if necessary—all “heathens” and “infidels” into 19 the “true” faith harboured in itself the potential of a powerful weapon of ideological aggression. It will be borne in mind that “conversion” was accompanied by the destruction of old spiritual links, culture and ideological foundations and by the suppression of moral sources of resistance.

p Religion played an enormous role in the enslavement of the peoples of the colonies. It retains much of this role under capitalism and imperialism. Attention must be drawn, first and foremost, to the activities conducted by missionaries under the direct guidance of the corresponding governments. It was through conversion to Christianity that the colonialists recruited their agents among the local population (incidentally, Chiang Kai-shek is also a "converted heathen" and the “honour” for bringing him into the Christian fold belongs to United States Protestant missionaries, while Ngo Dinh Diem was converted to Catholicism by the French). In many colonial countries the planting of Christianity was an effective means of spiritually enslaving the local population.

p Whereas the above examples illustrate the first two (i.e., war and the consolidation of conquest) political situations, which had made ideology a means of struggle in foreign policy in the distant past, the epoch of the 18 thcentury bourgeois-democratic revolutions allows us to form an idea of the third of the above-mentioned situations.

p These revolutions took place when a developed system of inter-state relations had taken shape and any major change could upset the existing balance of strength and set off a chain of foreign political consequences. This made these revolutions, more than any other before them, not only national but international, threading together a large range of internal and foreign political problems.

p On the one hand, a successful revolution, which put an end to absolutism in one country, threatened the old ruling classes in other countries by spurring the mature revolutionary processes in these countries. This created the foundation for the international unity of the forces of the old world against the revolution—not only for counter-revolutionary wars but also for other actions designed to throttle revolutionary ideas wherever they had gained strength.

p On the other hand, the new class that had come to power as a result of the revolution could not fail to see that its 2* 20 duty, stemming from solidarity with the oppressed, lay in spreading revolutionary ideas in other countries.

p The Great French Bourgeois Revolution’s slogan, calling for the revolutionary liberation of the peoples of Europe, and the National Convention’s decree of November 19, 1792 on assistance to all peoples aspiring to depose their tyrants, on the basis of which the ideas of the revolution were propagated on an international scale, were unquestionably born of the desire to help achieve the triumph of the ideals of freedom and democracy throughout the world. That epoch witnessed the appearance of the internationalist type of revolutionary, for instance, the Frenchman Marquis de Lafayette and the Pole Thaddeus Kosciuszko, who went to America to serve in the revolutionary war, the German Anacharsis Cloots, who was active in the French Revolution, the Englishman Thomas Paine, who played an outstanding part in the War of Independence in America and then went to France to help her revolutionaries. When Robespierre declared that France was fighting for the liberation of the world there is no doubt that he sincerely believed what he was saying.

p Obviously, international revolutionary propaganda was required by the vital political interests of the revolution, by the interests of its defence against the external enemy. It was by giving its defensive war a revolutionary character that the young French bourgeoisie was able to fire the masses with enthusiasm and defeat a militarily stronger opponent. "The whole people,” Lenin wrote, "and especially the masses, i.e., the oppressed classes, were swept up by boundless revolutionary enthusiasm; everybody considered the war a just war of defence, as it actually was."  [20•*  The revolutionary character of the war and of the entire foreign policy allowed the French bourgeoisie to exercise a strong influence on the population of their opponents and thereby seriously undermine their strength.

p Foreign political propaganda played a considerable role also during the American bourgeois-democratic revolution—the War of Independence—although its revolutionary nature was not very pronounced. In this connection mention may be made of Benjamin Franklin’s mission to France in 1776 21 for the purpose of winning French support for the independence struggle of the seceded colonies. Today United States propaganda experts legitimately regard that mission as "a diplomatic success and a stunning venture in international propaganda".  [21•* 

p The War of Independence has entered the history of propaganda as an example where means of persuasion were used skilfully on the battlefield. To crush the revolution the British king sent an expeditionary corps of 30,000 German mercenaries. The US Congress set up a commission to draw up a plan whereby to induce these mercenaries to desert. On the commission’s recommendations the Congress passed a bill according all deserters and defectors citizenship with all the accompanying rights and, what was most essential, a grant of 50 acres of land that was to be owned in perpetuity by the recipient and his heirs.  [21•** 

p The measures taken by the US Congress and the propaganda campaign that was started on their basis had a substantial effect. American researchers estimate that of the 30,000 German mercenaries between 5,000 and 6,000 deserted.  [21•*** 

p The close of the 18th and the opening years of the 19th century give what is essentially history’s first instance in which broad, planned and organised use of ideological means of struggle was made in foreign policy, thus turning foreign political propaganda into an important component of state activity. We refer to Napoleon, who was an innovator in propaganda, including foreign political propaganda. This is mentioned by many of his celebrated contemporaries, Metternich among them. Noting that Napoleon was the first to use the press as a vehicle of military and political leadership, Metternich wrote: "It is something new in history that a sovereign should frequently and directly 22 address the public. Napoleon introduced this method and greatly benefited by it."  [22•* 

p Napoleon’s broad and frequently very successful use of ideological means of struggle can by no means be ascribed to his personal inclinations and talents. This was chiefly due to objective circumstances, which made the use of these means necessary and possible.

p Indeed, Napoleon’s first problem when he came to power was to justify and consolidate his rule in a country which had just had a revolution and where the monarchy had fallen and the old principles of legitimism had given way to national sovereignty. In this situation it was absolutely vital to the usurper that the public should “sanction” his right to power. To obtain this sanction public opinion had to be correspondingly manipulated. Another major factor was the changed character of the army, which had been turned from an army of professional hired soldiers into a mass army recruited from among broad strata of the population. An army like that in post-revolutionary France clearly had to have incentives other than only the possibility of gain and plunder. To maintain high morale and fighting efficiency in the army it was necessary to appeal to national feelings, patriotism and so on.

p Also important was that having come to power on the crest of a great revolution Napoleon had the possibility of reaping many of its ideological fruits despite the fact that they had nothing to do with his actual aims and intentions.  [22•**  Thanks to the efforts of his revolutionary predecessors, other nations identified France with the ideals of freedom, equality and fraternity. Napoleon appreciated the power of these ideals and used them in his own interests against his monarchist adversaries. That was why he caused the works of the enlighteners to be disseminated in foreign countries, although he had them thrown out of fashion 23 in France herself, disguised his plans of plundering Russia with talk about the freedom of Poland and the emancipation of the serfs, and generally took every opportunity to profit ideologically by the revolution he had himself trampled.

p The Napoleonic wars made the European monarchs determined to wage an uncompromising struggle against revolutionary ideas. Thus was born the Holy Alliance, which was likewise destined to set an important precedent in the sphere interesting us, a precedent of action (and of an international organisation specially set up for such action) against “seditious” ideas in other countries.

p The beginning of the epoch of imperialism marked the end of the prehistory and the commencement of the real history of the ideological struggle in international relations in the modern meaning of the term. The First World War is usually regarded as a milestone in the shaping of foreign political propaganda. Bourgeois historiography dates the emergence of official government foreign political propaganda agencies from the period of the First World War. The British Ministry of Information under Lord Beaverbrook and the Department of Enemy Propaganda headed by Lord Northcliffe, the American Committee on Public Information or the Creel Committee,  [23•*  the Allied International Committee, which supervised the concerted propaganda of the Entente, the German Kriegspresseamt (War Press Department), which was subordinated to the General Staff and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs  [23•** —these and analogous agencies and departments generally anticipated the organisation of imperialist foreign and domestic propaganda in its modern form.

p The techniques and methods of propaganda for the army and population of other countries—not only enemy but also neutral and allied countries—likewise took shape in general outline.

p In short, many facts indicate that the First World War was indeed an important milestone in the development of 24 foreign political propaganda. But bourgeois researchers overlook the point that decisive here was not the war itself but the entire range of socio-political changes arising from capitalism’s transition to its imperialist stage, from the beginning of the epoch of its general crisis.

p The transition to imperialism and the ruling bourgeoisie’s shift towards reaction all along the line made the spiritual suppression of the people a major instrument of politics alongside physical violence. At the close of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century there was in most capitalist countries a trend towards a sharp curtailment of freedom of speech and the press, intensified censorship and repression of “dissidents”. Most indicative was the unprecedented scale of the organised propaganda of the ruling class, the instruments for which were the press, the school, the Church and various reactionary institutions.

p This period witnessed a change in the bourgeoisie’s notions about the ideological struggle. It abandoned its former liberal practice of limited interference and went over to an active struggle for all-embracing control over people’s way of thinking, over public opinion. Accordingly, the foundations were laid for the imperialist “theory” of propaganda, for the subtle “science” of manipulating people, which achieved its full development in our day. Naturally, the colossal activation of the ruling bourgeoisie’s ideological propaganda could no longer be confined to the boundaries of capitalist countries.

p One of the cardinal aims of this ideological activity was to serve the aggressive foreign policy of the imperialists. Expansion and the preparation and conduct of wars of aggrandisement occupied a hitherto unparalleled place in the policy of bourgeois states.

p Imperialism is inseparably linked with wars, with the struggle for the division and redivision of the world, for the enslavement of peoples. It will be appreciated that the imperialist state ultimately had to back up such a policy ideologically. This was mirrored in domestic propaganda vindicating aggressive foreign policy, fanning chauvinism, distrust and hatred of other peoples, justifying war and fostering a spirit of militarism.

p The First World War was a catalyst, as it were, that speeded up these processes and, at the same time, created 25 the conditions under which it was possible to give effect to plans that had been drawn up in peacetime in the silence of war and diplomatic departments. The armed collision most strikingly proved that it was vital to enlist the people’s moral support for imperialist policy. Touching on the First World War, John L. Martin writes: "It was then discovered that total war could be fought only by attacking the minds as well as the bodies of men."  [25•* 

p As regards the efficacy of the propaganda used against the armed forces and population of other countries on a massive scale for the first time during the First World War there are contradictory opinions in bourgeois literature. Following that war a version that gained currency in Germany was that Allied (particularly British) propaganda played the decisive role in ensuring victory to the Entente. But this version, even in the opinion of serious bourgeois researchers, is absolutely untenable. It was fabricated to back up the legend, invented by the German militarists, that the German army remained unbeaten in the field of battle and that Germany was defeated because she "had been let down and deserted by her allies".  [25•**  It is generally recognised that Entente propaganda was more effective against Austria-Hungary, where it found much more fertile soil.

p When the First World War ended the foreign political propaganda apparatus that had been set up to serve it was dissolved. For some time it seemed that everything had reverted to the old ways. But this was only an outward impression. Actually, the war of ideas in international relations continued to be conducted and intensified on various fronts, above all on the front of struggle between imperialism and socialism and also in inter-imperialist clashes and in the conflicts between the imperialists and the peoples of the colonies. With the development of new means of communication, the first-ever special government foreign political propaganda agency began to take shape in peacetime.

p In 1927 the Netherlands pioneered short-wave broadcasts for the colonies. France followed suit in 1931. The British Broadcasting Corporation’s Empire Service was inaugurated 26 in 1932. Active foreign radio propaganda was started by Germany in 1933, by Italy in 1935 and by the United States in 1939.  [26•* 

p The nazis, it must be said, set up an unprecedented "total propaganda" system and machinery, whose annual expenditures are assessed by American experts as having exceeded 500 million dollars.  [26•**  Most of this budget was for foreign political propaganda, which was directly controlled by the Foreign Policy Office of the Nazi Party (the department chief was Alfred Rosenberg) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

p Large foreign political propaganda agencies were set up in other imperialist countries during the Second World War. These included the Ministry of Information and the Psychological Warfare Committee in Britain, and the Foreign Information Service and the Office of War Information in the USA. Active propaganda was conducted also by the military command, which bore the direct responsibility for tactical propaganda in the battlefield and for propaganda among the population of occupied territories.

p The years of the Second World War witnessed a colossal development of imperialist propaganda in its modern form, particularly the evolution of the theory, techniques and methods of propaganda. Unlike the propaganda activities during the First World War, the propaganda efforts of the leading imperialist countries (with the exception of the defeated states) did not cease after the Second World War, and instead of being dissolved the foreign political propaganda machine was reorganised. The propaganda lull that followed the establishment of peace proved to be extremely shortlived. Two or three years after the end of the Second World War the imperialists started the cold war in which foreign political propaganda was one of the principal weapons.

Thus, in all the leading capitalist countries foreign political propaganda turned from activity typical of military crises and emergencies into permanent and legally established activity.