I98 HUMAN LIFE IN RUSSIA
of the cultural, social, economic and artistic progress of the
country, is based on a combination of imaginary statements and
generalizations drawn from certain exceptional performances
on which no inference as to the general position should be
based. The resultant impressions are spread among all the
states of the outer world, both orally and in writing, and
through a number of different channels.
The most important of these is the press which is at the
disposal of Moscow. The activity of this press should not be
confused with that of the Moscow representatives of the
bourgeois press; I am speaking of the numerous Communist
or pro-Soviet papers abroad, which stand directly or indirectly
in the service of Moscow propaganda. Such papers appear
in every language. The most important are those which,
while not ostensibly of Communist leanings, do the work of the
Third International under the guise of anti-Fascist propa-
ganda.
The Russian press has to bear in mind the fact that its
readers have a certain knowledge of conditions within the
Soviet Union; they know, for example, that there is such
a thing as a famine. Those British, French and other
papers who are of a pro-Cbmmunistic tendency have, therefore,
among others, the task of conducting the whole campaign against
those eyewitnesses who testify to the truth in Russia, quite irre-
spective of what Russian readers may know. It is the task of
these papers to attack critics of conditions in Russia—in quite
different ways, as the local conditions dictate—sometimes by
apparently objective argument, at other times by mere abuse.
There is a far-reaching division of labour between the
Russian press in the country and the Communist organs
supported directly or indirectly in New York, Basle, Paris and
elsewhere. Statements and opinions which cannot be upheld
in Russia on account of the local population are left to papers
abroad; and the same applies to views which Moscow prefers
not to publish in its official press in order not to injure its