162

p In short, the propaganda concepts prevailing among imperialist theoreticians (and practitioners) boil down to the task of influencing not only and not so much a person’s mind as his emotions. Under this approach ideological influences are in fact supplanted by psychological pressures (hence, undoubtedly, the enhanced role played by psychologists in propaganda) in the sense acquired by this word after Freud.

p This is the approach also of the most “moderate” of the bourgeois experts. For instance, Lindley Fraser defines propaganda "as the activity, or the art, of inducing others to behave in a way in which they would not behave in its absence”,  [162•**  and writes: "We may indeed affect people’s behaviour by appeals to their intellects alone; but if we do, our activities will not by any standard be described as propagandist (in this case, he says, it will be “educational” —G.A.).... It follows that propaganda is, at least to a large extent, emotional in its appeal, whether directly or indirectly."  [162•***  And adds: "On which emotions can propaganda operate, whether directly or indirectly? The answer is, on all of them: simple emotions like fear, complex emotions like pride or the sense of adventure; unworthy emotions like greed, creditable emotions like sympathy or self-respect; self-regarding emotions like ambition, other-regarding emotions like family love. All human emotions and instincts have at one time or another provided propagandists with a means of influencing or trying to influence the behaviour of their targets."  [162•**** 

p This point of view is stated most bluntly by Professor Jacques Ellul of Bordeaux University, who describes modern political propaganda as having gone over "to the use of 163 psychological and psychoanalytical methods of influencing individuals in depth”. "In propaganda,” he writes, "they are no longer openly writing in the newspapers or stating in radio broadcasts exactly what the propagandist wants the individual to think or what he must believe in. Actually, the problem is to induce such and such a person to think in such and such a way or, to be more exact, induce a certain group of people to act in this fashion. How is this achieved? People are not told directly: ‘Act in this or that way’. A psychological stratagem is found to produce the needed reaction. This psychological stratagem is called a ‘stimulus’. As we can see, propaganda thus no longer has anything in common with the diffusion of ideas. Its purpose is to diffuse ‘stimuli’, in other words, psychological and psychoanalytical snares that provoke certain actions, feelings and mystical impulses."  [163•* 

p A question one could ask is: Does bourgeois propaganda not use and disseminate definite ideas, does it not polemise, in particular, with Marxism-Leninism? Indeed, this polemic goes on constantly, even in mass propaganda. But if one takes a closer look one will find that here ideas and ideologies are used as “stimuli” appealing to emotions and instincts rather than as a system of views and arguments appealing to the intellect. For instance, more and more frequently propaganda does not discuss communism as such but concerns itself with coining catchwords that would provoke a certain emotion (fear, aversion, and so on) in the audience and with using concepts such as “democracy” and "free world" to create symbols inducing a favourable attitude to capitalism. Increasing use is now being made of these methods in imperialist propaganda for the mass audience.

p One sometimes encounters attempts to prove that in this case propaganda only ministers to the wishes and inclinations of its audience, which does not desire to ponder, and collate ideas, to think independently, preferring easy and understandable solutions and explanations, which, besides, conform to their original wishes. Not long ago an American author wrote in this connection that the reason for this is that today logic "is losing" its role, that people believe only what they want to believe. Therefore, he says, to persuade 164 the audience it is important to appeal constantly not so much to the intellect as to emotions —for then the appeal will be remembered and used for “self-persuasion”.  [164•* 

p This approach does not hold water. Imperialist propaganda plays on the emotions not because the audience cannot think logically but because it aims to force people to accept its views running counter to their logic which reflects their real interests and aims. This was frankly admitted by Michael Choukas, whom we have already mentioned. He writes that the objective of propaganda techniques is "an individual thoroughly drained of all powers of discrimination, of all critical and reasoning ability, and reduced to the lowest possible human plane, the emotional, where he can operate only under external, and hence artificial stimulation and guidance".  [164•** 

p The reader may say that there is really nothing new in this propaganda approach.

p True, but formerly it was sooner an intuitive, pragmatic approach. Today it is founded on all the information that can be offered by science, which has produced an entire arsenal of methods of influencing the masses. This is a striking change in comparison with the bourgeois concepts of the 18th and 19th centuries, when the prevalent view was that man was a being for whom it was necessary to produce arguments appealing to his intellect.  [164•*** 

p There obviously are two sources of the modern bourgeois conception of the ideological struggle, of propaganda.

p The first is the crisis of bourgeois ideology, which is making it necessary to turn to other, “non-ideological” forms and methods of influencing people.

p The second is the new interpretations of human nature that have sprung, as we have noted above, partly from the political requirements of the ruling class and partly from 165 the directions in which bourgeois psychology has been developing beginning with Freud. Attempts are being made to explain man’s psychical life and, in the long run, his behaviour as being rooted in unconscious instincts, in emotions (inborn or acquired in childhood) and in unchangeable inclinations that determine or prevail over the intellect.

p It is not our intention to analyse psychological theories of this kind, but in the given case it is important to note that in the West these theories are regarded as the key to the problem facing imperialist propaganda, the problem of how to influence the masses spiritually under conditions where the balance of ideological forces has changed to the detriment of the bourgeoisie. The political theory of the imperialist bourgeoisie has long ago ensured for the “elite” the possibility of “manipulating” the masses without hindrance. One of the principal means for this was found in psychology, in its quest for methods of influencing man "in depth" that can circumvent or prevail on the intellect.

p Thus was born not only the theory but also the political practice of “deideologised” propaganda through which, it was believed, and as many people still believe, it was possible to go over from a disadvantageous field of ideological battle, that promised nothing save more and more serious setbacks, to a more promising bridgehead, isolated from and indifferent to social realities, for a direct intrusion into the psychical world, where the dominant role is played by physiological and psychophysiological rather than socio-ideological mechanisms.

p This is clearly enunciated by Alfred Sturminger, who writes that in political propaganda there is always one and only one"object—human nature. Decisive importance may attach to manipulating "psychological elements" such as "basic hope" or "basic fear”, and also "mankind’s atavisms" which in periods of excitement "are easily revealed and brought to the surface by awakening and whipping up base inclinations and instincts".  [165•* 

p In describing psychology’s “contribution”, Sturminger says in conclusion: "In short, efforts are being made to use 166 all, really all, means to study the ’irrational element’ in thinking and feeling and to place the results of this study in the service of political propaganda."  [166•* 

p In defining the place of the psychologist in propaganda, the American Professor Paul Linebarger writes "he can show how to convert lust into resentment, individual resourcefulness into mass cowardice, friction into distrust, prejudice into fury. He does so by going down to the unconscious mind for his source materials".  [166•** 

p In effect this concept of ideological propaganda is the answer of the imperialist theoreticians to the fact (rejected and yet intuitively acknowledged by them) that ideology is objective, that the people’s ideas and thinking are moulded by their social environment. This is neither more nor less than an attempt to give politics a means of fighting the objective factors of ideological propaganda (factors which are unfavourable to it) through subjective interference in human thinking and behaviour.

p With the exception of the quite fanatical adherents of “depth” psychology, bourgeois propaganda theorists cannot deny out of hand that there is a connection between human thinking and objective reality, the influence exercised on human thinking not only by the “unconscious” but also by the economic, social and political conditions of life. This gives rise to yet another important concept, the concept of “information”, which is also aimed at surmounting the operation of objective factors in the propaganda war and which has made a deep imprint on imperialist propaganda as a whole.

p The main idea underlying this concept is illustrated by an episode described by Walter Lippmann in the opening chapter of his book, Public Opinion, which was one of the first attempts at a sociological study of the entire range of problems linked with public opinion and propaganda. This episode took place on an island, which in 1914 had a mixed British, German and French community. From mail which arrived in the island in mid-September they learned that 167 their countries had been at war for six weeks, and immediately their attitude to each other underwent a drastic change. "We can see that the news ... comes to us now fast, now slowly; but that whatever we believe to be a true picture, we treat as if it were the environment itself."  [167•* 

p In other words, a person’s political thinking depends above all not on the information he receives directly from his experience and impressions but on the information that comes to him indirectly from newspapers, the radio, hearsay, and so on, and is moulded accordingly. There is thus a whole series of intermediate links between reality and the subject. This creates the possibility of isolating the latter from the former, disrupting the objective links between the social being and social consciousness and thereby opening additional channels for subjectively influencing the very process of the formation of ideas and views.

p Hypothetically, we could picture a situation where Lippmann’s islanders never learned of the war between their countries (especially if it was a short war) and their views and attitudes were not influenced by their environment. Or, on the contrary, they could have heard false rumours about the war and thought and acted accordingly even though objective reality did not give any grounds for such thoughts and actions.

p These premises, naturally, lead to definite conclusions for propaganda, both in the sense of limiting unfavourable information and in the sense of misinforming the people, fabricating information or even, as the highest stage, fabricating “news” that could later provide the basis for the desired information.

All these methods have long been in use in the policies of the exploiting states, which through the centuries have had recourse not only to the propagation of ideas and views but also to the concealment (through secrecy or the censorship) of unfavourable information or to the spread of the desired information. Modern bourgeois sociology and political theory have only transferred these methods and political institutions from intuitive “statesmanship” to the level of a science and tried to adapt them to contemporary conditions.

168

p This is of paramount importance. Despite the identity of the basic aims and methods in the policies of past and present exploiting states, one cannot fail to see some significant distinctions. In the case of the sphere interesting us it is necessary to underscore the growth of the people’s political awareness and cultural level, the progress that has been achieved in means of communication and information, the democratic gains of the working people and the undermining of the ruling bourgeoisie’s monopoly of the means and sources of information due to the growth of the workers’ press, the emergence of socialist countries, their information agencies, and so on.

p These changes have substantially altered the situation. In most of the capitalist states they have impaired the efficacy of the censorship (which exists in one form or another even in the most democratic bourgeois countries) and impeded if not the dissemination then at least the efficacy of downright and obvious lies about the facts of social life in one’s own country and abroad.

p The imperialist bourgeoisie has not, of course, abandoned its attempts to influence the public mind by interfering in the process of information. On the contrary, such interference has assumed even larger proportions than before. But the ways for it have grown complicated, while the methods have been improved. "News,” writes John L. Martin, "is the most important tool of the propagandist. The successful propagandist combines favourable with unfavourable news, playing down the latter and making it seem of no consequence, while playing up the former."  [168•* 

p This is, of course, the most simplified enunciation of the principal methods of information as a tool of propaganda as understood by bourgeois theory. Actually, these methods are much more subtle. But the above enunciation clearly shows the attitude that must be adopted to the persevering efforts of the imperialists to depict their propaganda as “news” or to their talk about “truth” being the substance of this propaganda.

p This kind of talk has been going on for a long ti me and with mounting doggedness. Suffice it to rec all President Harry S. Truman’s statement to the American Society of 169 Newspaper Editors in which he declared that the "campaign of truth" underlay US foreign political propaganda and that "plain, simple, unvarnished truth" was the best weapon against communism.  [169•* 

p Commenting on this imposing declaration, Martin wittily noted: "It must be remembered, of course, that the propagandist has a choice of truths."  [169•**  This view was shared by the American propaganda expert Kurt London: " Information. This term is a euphemism. Informative reporting can in itself have strong propagandist^ effects, even when truly objective. It also can appear objective but be loaded with slanted items, specifically designed to propagandise.... One also must consider the fact that absolute objectivity in news reporting is virtually non-existent."  [169•*** 

p From the standpoint of the imperialist bourgeoisie the most perfect propaganda doctrines also provide for highly subtle methods of creating “facts”, which are then used as the basis of information and propaganda.

p In order to make propaganda more effective some of the architects of official US propaganda insist on measures that would if not eliminate then at least demonstrate a reduction of the discrepancy between words, and deeds in foreign policy, and demand reinforcing propaganda with action. This is the keynote of Truth Is Our Weapon, a book by Edward W. Barrett, a former US Assistant Secretary of State.  [169•****  The same view is propounded by Professor Ralph K. White, who stresses that "our actions must be in line with our words”, that the "propaganda of the deed is more potent than the propaganda of the word".  [169•***** 

p In these pronouncements one must distinguish two tendencies: one is purely propagandistic and boils down to the recommendation of some demonstrative actions that would help propaganda and make it more effective; the other is political and represents a certain adjustment of policy to reality, concessions to the most pressing demands of public opinion, in other words, it is a form of bourgeois reformism. 170 The first, naturally, has to be simply exposed. The second, despite all its points of contact with the first, requires a more cautious approach by socialist countries and all other progressive forces, because in addition to its attempts at^v deception it is necessary to see in it real concessions to the working people (whether in foreign or in domestic policy) as a result of their struggle for their direct interests and for reforms.

p Various ways of diverting people from information giving them the lead to ideas, views and conclusions that are undesirable from the standpoint of the propagandist are a form of interfering in man’s perception of the reality around him. We are referring to the organised and systematic attempts to make people lose interest in real, vital problems of social life.

p This form of ensuring spiritual domination in society is likewise not something fundamentally new in the exploiting state. Distraction has always been one of the main functions of religion. A principle in operation in Ancient Rome called for "bread and spectacles”, in other words for the satisfaction of elementary requirements and the distraction of the masses from politics and the class struggle with the aid of varied entertainment.

p In present-day capitalist society this activity has reached fantastic proportions. In the West the press, literature, cinema, radio and television seek to concentrate people’s attention on sex, sports, the private lives of new “heroes” artificially created by the propaganda machine (film stars, gangsters, and similar personalities), crime, film hits, pop music, dances and new cars. The incredible clamour raised round these objects, sometimes whipped up to the scale of mass hysteria, has become a feature of the modern bourgeois way of life and culture in the USA and other countries.

p In bourgeois sociological literature one finds attempts to depict this as the inevitable outcome not only of the higher standard of living but also of the social changes brought about by the people’s increased influence on social life and culture (the "mass culture" theory).  [170•*  Some authors 171 even try to prove that this is a healthy development, that it safeguards people against the emotional stresses inherent in the way of life in modern “industrial” and "mass society" with its rapid pace and its satiation with politics and propaganda. For example, in a book entitled The Effects of Mass Communication, Joseph T. Klapper, Secretary- Treasurer of the American Association for Public Opinion, maintains that books and radio programmes that divert people from their day-to-day worries and transport them to a mythical world of success and heroes are beneficial for they " produce certain, psychophysica.l effects as, for example, ... a temporary mood of relaxation".  [171•* 

p Klapper pretends he does not notice that entertainment (in addition to being a source of huge profits) is becoming a major instrument for the preservation of the ideological domination of the ruling classes and a means of corrupting the mind and exerting spiritual pressure on the masses.

p However, this is acknowledged by many bourgeois theorists, who give “escapism” and the tactics of “diversion” a prominent place in propaganda. Aldous Huxley, for instance, in assessing the significance of entertainment writes that in the West it, like other media of mass communications, is "concerned in the main neither with the true nor the false, but with an unreal, the more or less totally irrelevant".  [171•**  In modern society entertainment has thus taken the place once held by the Church. "The other world of religion,” Huxley notes, "is different from the other world of entertainment; but they resemble one another in being most decidedly ’not of this world’. Both are distractions and, if lived in too continuously, both can become, in Marx’s phrase, ’the opium of the people’, and so a threat to freedom."  [171•***  For, he explains, in the West "the non-stop distractions" are "now threatening to drown in a sea of irrelevance the rational propaganda".  [171•**** 

p "A society,” he writes, "most of whose members spend a a great part of their time not on the spot, not here and now and in the calculable future, but somewhere else, in the 172 irrelevant other world of sport and soap opera, of mythology and metaphysical phantasy, will find it hard to resist the encroachments of those who would manipulate and control it."  [172•* 

p Like the other authors, who are opposed to the mounting anti-democratic reactionary trends in the political life of the Western countries, Huxley is not inclined to depict it as the result of some spontaneous processes. Besides, it is hard not to see that behind the mass diffusion of the "opium of the people" are the real interests (commercial and political) of those in whose hands economic and political power is concentrated.

p In information, as in entertainment and culture, the function of the imperialist bourgeoisie is thus aimed at replacing objective reality with an artificial “reality” and thereby intruding into the very process of the people’s cognition of reality and distorting this process in its own interests. On a larger plane this is the very tendency of counteracting the objective factors of the ideological struggle through subjective interference that we have spoken of earlier in connection with propaganda aimed at unconscious feelings, at stirring irrational instincts and emotions.  [172•**  This tendency, which is in fact a war on the human mind, is gradually becoming the keynote of imperialist bourgeois propaganda.

Moreover, in contrast to the medieval obscurantists, who counted chiefly on the ignorance and wretchedness of the masses, this propaganda is making increasing use of mankind’s finest achievements—the latest discoveries of science and technology.

173

p Much has already been done in this direction. But even more sinister are some of the current purely exploratory experiments whose results may quite possibly be added to the propaganda arsenal in the future. Since we have mentioned the future, it would be worth our while, before discussing these experiments, to refer again to a work of bourgeois science fiction which accurately and very impressively noted the direction of the quests of bourgeois propaganda and the sciences serving it.

p This is Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, published in the 1930s and today a classic “anti-utopia”. It depicts the "society of the future”, a monstrous world, which with bitter irony the author calls a “brave” and “new” world, where all human values have been trampled—freedom, comradeship, love, and the very ability of the intellect to think independently and creatively, a world that has been turned not even into a barracks but into a giant and forbiddingly efficient “man-breeding” farm.  [173•* 

p As every significant work of the Utopian genre (and Brave New World, despite the author’s basically misconceived ideological positions, is unquestionably significant), this book is a criticism of the “true”, although, as any other " antiutopia" (as distinct from a “utopia”) it contains no description of the “proper”. In this case this “true” is the practice of the fascist states and also some of the tendencies that have begun to take shape also in the Western bourgeoisdemocratic countries, namely, violence against the individual, spiritual enslavement of the masses, the Hitlerite plans for the nation s "genetic adjustment”, and some research that could give dictators new means and methods of bending people to their will.

p Brave New World was designed by its author as a warning against the terrible fate awaiting all mankind if it did not get off that road.

p Such are the general premises in Huxley’s book. In the given case what interests us in particular is Huxley’s description of the methods, which, he says, within a few centuries will be used by "scientifically organised" tyranny for the spiritual enslavement of the masses. Some of these methods still have a fantastic ring today: for instance, people are 174 “hatched” or “decanted” in incubators, where through the addition of various chemicals injected into an artificially inseminated ovum they produce individuals with various “qualities”, from intelligent “alphas”, future executives, to half-witted “epsilons”, future labourers.  [174•* 

p Unfortunately, some of the other methods are no longer as fantastic as they at first seemed. Among them, for example, are psychological methods of inducing definite social reflexes, viz., contentedness with one’s life and position in society, contempt for everybody on the lower rungs of the social ladder and servility to all who are on the higher rungs. Moreover, they include the utilisation of all possible forms of "opium of the people"—entertainment, the techniques for which reach their highest level of perfection in Huxley’s book (erotic delights ensured by total moral permissiveness and the abolition of the family, infallible contraceptives and “soma”, a narcotic that causes intoxication without the ill effects of alcohol or morphine). Lastly, they consist of a careful sifting of information and ideas for the people (this sifting would require the destruction of literature as such, including the classics, which would be dangerous on account of their humanistic ideas). These methods, Huxley believes, are sufficient to ensure the total suppression of the individual and make him an obedient tool in the hands of dictators, to force man not only to reconcile himself to his fate but even to regard it as the happiest state he can achieve.

p In the 1930s most readers could regard this novel as a purely fantastic work of literature even if it touched on some sinister aspects of reality (notably the aspects linked with fascism). But a quarter of a century later Huxley returned to the theme of the "brave new world" not in the form of a novel but in the form of a purely political work—Brave New World Revisited.

p In the new work the writer’s former caustic irony gives way to panic. "The prophecies made in 1931,” he writes, 175 "are coming true much sooner than I thought they would.... The nightmare of total organisation, which I had situated in the seventh century after Ford, has emerged from the safe, remote future and is now awaiting us, just around the next corner."  [175•* 

p One of the principal facts on which Huxley bases this gloomy prophecy is, as he himself points out, the progress in some spheres of science and technology which holds out for dictators of the future unlimited possibilities for controlling the minds and hearts of people.

Is this fact cause for anxiety? Most certainly. There may be different attitudes to the results of the recent intensive research in “depth” psychology and even in telepathy, regarding which there are contradictory opinions, ranging from their total repudiation as sheer charlatanry, to unequivocal or partial acknowledgement. It is still difficult to make a proper assessment also of the experiments in utilising the data of corresponding research in advertising and propaganda.  [175•** 

176

p There is no doubt whatever that immense advances have been made in recent years by research into the mechanism of mental processes and the influence exercised on them by chemical, electronic and other stimuli.

p Grave apprehensions have also been aroused by some of the latest achievements of pharmacology in the production of mind stimulating drugs. Nobody will deny their use as a new and powerful means of fighting mental and nervous diseases. But there is now a new and dangerous field for the abuse of scientific achievements, for their use as agents prejudicial to health. It will be recalled that when the nazis interrogated political prisoners they used drugs (for instance, scopolamine) to break down the resistance of their victims. Today there are incomparably more powerful means of sapping people’s will power and influencing their minds without even resorting to violence, simply through the resultant narcotic effect. There is an eager market for drugs of this kind and they increase the danger of mass addiction, which is already an ominous menace. The most widely-known drugs of this category are the American-invented silosibin and LSD, which not only stupefy people but make them more receptive to mysticism. Doctors are alarmed by the mass use of various sedatives that injure the organism and suppress normal mind reactions to reality. Huxley’s “soma” is thus no longer a fantastic means of suppressing man’s will power.

p Lastly, mention must be made of the experiments being conducted with electronic devices in a number of countries, notably in the USA. Describing these experiments by Professor Jose Delgado of Yale University, the French newspaper Arts wrote: "Delgado plans to design a tiny electronic device capable of compelling any person, at the very mention of the word ’communism’, say, to kill the president of the republic or begin to roar."  [176•*  An American medical journal reported that similar experiments were being conducted at another American university by Robert Heath.  [176•** 

p Commenting on these experiments an Arts observer wrote with horror of the torrent of electronic stimuli "which completely pervert people. Their personalities change to such 177 an extent that they are reduced to a state of total irresponsibility and are capable of the monstrous actions. Thus, in June of this abundant year of 1964, it has become possible to induce lust in any child, to provoke a girl to murder and to make a blood-thirsty vampire out of a village schoolteacher."  [177•*  The French newspaper justly sees the end goal and chief danger of these “experiments” in that they are out to "turn people into slaves" and "rape the mind".

p All this is still in the experimental stage, of course. But the fact that such “experiments” are being conducted and that there are already repercussions forces one to take a serious attitude to the prospects for the development of the "science of manipulation”, especially if one views them in the light of the efforts imperialist propaganda is making to deaden the mind, to transfer the struggle for people’s minds and hearts from the sphere of ideology proper, where imperialism is at a disadvantage, to the sphere of " manipulation" by playing on emotions and instincts, by isolating man from his environment and by direct, so to say, supraideological influences on higher nervous activity.

p This anti-humane doctrine, which is gradually being translated into political practice, is evoking protests from a growing number of bourgeois scholars. An example is Rene-Henri Wust’s La guerre psychologique, brought out in Switzerland in the mid-1950s. This book’s keynote is that mankind has not yet realised the terrible threat emanating from the possibilities of using such a powerful weapon as psychological control. "Everybody knows and condemns the nuclear form of war,” the author writes. "The psychological weapon is much more secret— Hitherto it has not caused any outburst of public indignation or led to any ’appeal to universal conscience’.... But is not a weapon terrifying which enables the modern state to mechanise minds, to impose its domination on people from infancy and compel everybody to act without thinking?"  [177•** 

p The analogy which Wiist draws between the thermonuclear and the psychological weapon cannot be called arbitrary. Indeed, in both cases it is a question of a monstrous 178 distortion of progress, of the achievements of science, of the mind, seriously imperilling the human race.

p And in both cases there is hope, unnoticed by most bourgeois scientists, linked with progress in another sphere, in social development, with progress creating new possibilities for excluding such a total abuse of science, technology and other fruits of civilisation. In the case of thermonuclear weapons, such progress has already found its expression in the fact that imperialism is confronted by socialism, by the forces of peace. This creates new possibilities for averting a thermonuclear catastrophe, although the threat of such a catastrophe has not been completely removed. The same concerns the most perfect present and future forms of psychological weapons.

p Progress in this sphere promoted by scientific achievements is taking place in an epoch witnessing a similarly rapid growth of the socio-political forces opposed to the imperialist corrupters of minds. The growth of culture, the conscious political activity of the masses, their mounting struggle for socialism and democracy, and the increasing influence of socialist ideas largely facilitated by the socialist community’s successes in the building of the new society, are the tangible factors fortifying the belief that the terrible fate of the "brave new world" will remain one of the many unfulfilled prophecies of visionaries.

But it would be absurd to ignore the serious threat that nevertheless comes from imperialist propaganda, which has become an inalienable weapon of imperialist policy, a weapon on which this policy relies and on which depends the very, existence of imperialism, reaction and aggression. The threat is real and this devolves immense responsibility on the forces heading the struggle of the peoples for peace, democracy, national independence and socialism. To be successful the fight against imperialist propaganda needs understanding not only of its general principles but also of its specific methods.