PROPAGANDA METHODS 199
political relations with the Western Powers. In such a case the
Communist papers abroad proceed to action.
For example, the Russian press has for years observed
complete silence on the question of the attitude of the outer
world to foreign aid in the matter of the famine. The obvious
reason is that the population of the agricultural districts, who
cannot well be told that there is no famine, must not be allowed
to learn that endeavours to help them are being made abroad,
or, indeed, that the outer world is aware of their plight. It is
intended that the population shall believe that the outer world
takes no interest whatever in their unhappy situation. Here
again the organs controlled by Moscow have to take the field—
for example, against members of the international relief
organization—by methods of controversy, denunciation and
innuendo. This printed propaganda makes use of pamphlets
and agency reports as well as of newspapers.
But it is oral propaganda which continues to be the chief
and growing instrument of Moscow's activity. The work is
done by spokesmen who may be Communists proper or else
pacifists, anti-Fascists, etc. Since the West has recognized
Soviet Russia, and the latter State has established friendly
relations with a number of countries, new possibilities have
opened for Moscow's propaganda. As an instance I may quote
the campaign carried on by the German Communist, Willi
Munzenberg, with a number of other Communists of different
nationalities, in the summer of 1934 in the United States. With
the slogan "For Peace and against Fascism"—a slogan which
in itself has nothing to do with Communism—Miinzenberg
and his friends succeeded in holding mass meeting in all the
cities of North America; and the camouflage was so successful
that these activities were supported by numerous bourgeois
people and papers. Munzeabergfs speeches, however, did not
so much deal with the advertised subject—the dangers of
Fascism—as with the praise of Communism and with an
explanation of how a Communist revolution might be brought