PROPAGANDA METHODS 207
They were interested in everything but the most important
thing—the fate of the people as such. These hard words must
be used, if only to show why I feel that these travellers,
despite their ignorance of Russian and many other obstacles,
ought surely to have felt enough human sympathy and sense of
duty to attempt to discover the truth about the effects of these
experiments on the people themselves,
The most effective part of propaganda by the spoken word
is probably the remarkable work done by Moscow's wireless
broadcasts. It may fairly be claimed that Russia is to-day the
only state which has succeeded in making its wireless pro-
grammes serve the work of propaganda wholly and exclusively*
It is true that this has become possible only because, unlike
most other states, Russia completely controls the activities of
the stations in the country; in other words, it can exploit them
for the purposes of its propaganda without taking anything
else into consideration. This is the only explanation of the fact
that programmes in the Western European languages, which
hardly anyone in Russia speaks, predominate. By employing
British, French, German and other announcers, the fullest
allowance can be made for the mentality of listeners abroad,
and millions of British, French, Czech, German and Polish
listeners are exposed to psychological pressure by their own
countrymen.
The essence of Moscow's wireless propaganda is the spread-
ing of invented or distorted information, more especially
with regard to conditions in Russia. In dealing with foreign
countries, with many of which the Kremlin maintains friendly
relations, the wireless chiefly deals with the unfavourable
aspects. These are then cleverly contrasted with the achieve-
ments of the Soviet regime. All this, if skilfully prepared,
produces effects which often have an extraordinary sugges-
tive power on distant listeners* The degree of solemnity or
the reverse in which these reports are given out is invariably
adapted to the contents.