CHAPTER V
PROPAGANDA METHODS
THE question will be asked: Why is the existence of the Russian
famine so unknown to the public of the world outside that its
existence can be disputed or actually denied? How is it possible
that in the twentieth century—an age of wireless, aeroplanes
and the like—millions of persons can die and the fact remain
unknown or at any rate be a matter for debate. The question
demands an answer, the more so since a reply would explain
the indifference with which the world in general and the
Western democracies in particular regard the fate of those who
are perishing in Soviet Russia, I must, therefore, deal briefly
with the entire system of the news service on Soviet Russian
affairs and the unique work done by Moscow in order to
influence it
The task with which the Soviet regime is faced at the moment
is a heavy one. The hated bourgeois world, which is indis-
pensable for the maintenance of the Russian economic system,
must be induced to co-operate with the Soviet State or even
to support it politically as well as economically; and this at a
moment when, under Stalin's leadership, Moscow is compelled
to take steps to break through the ring of non-Communist states
by undermining them and fomenting world revolution. Simul-
taneously, the present struggle to maintain the Communist
economic system makes it necessary to prevent disturbances
from without and above all to ensure the political and economic
support of the outer world for this transitional period. If the
systematic preparation of revolution abroad is Moscow's first
principle., its second must be to take account of foreign public
opinion.
It is a task of Russian foreign policy and of the Third Inter-
national, both under Stalin's guidance, to ensure that official