PROPAGANDA METHODS 215
others, like Ilya Ehrenburg, mingle their laudations with a
little modest criticism.
Gorki lives in a fine house specially built for him in the best
suburb of Moscow, where he acts host to the pilgrims from the
West who visit him. Romain Holland quite recently, during a
stay with Gorki, sought to obtain confirmation of his own
views about affairs in Russia. The Soviet papers published
photographs showing Gorki walking in his garden with his
guest, or sitting at a table before dishes of the finest fruit.
(See Izvestia, July 6,1935.)
Hundreds of papers, wholly or in part under the command
of Moscow, proclaim to the world the happiness of the
nationalities within Russia and the solution of the nationalities
problem. Thus we read in Pravda of July 2, 1935, that after
the great physikkultura (physical culture) parade, in which
thousands of Moscow's privileged young people took part,
Maxim Gorki wrote a paean in praise of Stalin in the Soviet
press under the title of Joy and Pride. He expressed himself as
follows: "Long live Joseph Stalin, the mm of great heart and
great intellect, to whom our youth yesterday offered due
thanks, because he has given them a happy life." (One cannot
help tfrtnlnng of the terrible moral and physical condition of
the besprizornie> e.g. the thousands of wandering and ne-
glected children.) "Long live the simple and dear wisdom of
our leaders, the first and the only ones in the world who will
never send their people to enslave Manchurians, AbyssinianSj
Chinese or Indians/*
Moscow's attitude towards the problem of the famine,
foreign relief measures, and the question of the need of relief
in the agricultural districts, is an excellent example of the way
in which the various instruments of Moscow's propaganda
co-operate, and of the determination and ruthlessness with
which it forces its view on the world. Since the summer of
1933 « struggle has been in progress between the bodies who
ask for light to be thrown on the famine, and, if uecessaiy,