Berkhoff, Karel C. Motherland in Danger: Soviet Propaganda during World War II (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 571 Additionally, and on a relatively minor note, several place and proper names are misspelled throughout the book. Notwithstanding these issues, Yeomans’s book should make an important contribution to the evolving debates about the Second World War in former Yugoslavia. Carleton University, Ottowa Mark Biondich Berkhoff, Karel C. Motherland in Danger: Soviet Propaganda during World War II. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA and London, 2012. 407 pp. Notes. Sources. Index. $35.00: £25.00. This is an excellent guide to Second World War Soviet propaganda. Demonstrating a thorough knowledge of the secondary literature, Berkhoff’s study also draws extensively on primary sources, including newspapers, pamphlets, literature and films, unearthing fresh and interesting material from the archives. As a result, his account is both informed and nuanced. For example, Berkhoff shows that, contrary to accepted thought, Soviet propaganda did in fact mention that the Nazis had a ‘special policy’ regarding the Jews. Whilst their suffering was generally under-emphasized, on occasion Soviet writers did, nevertheless, single out the Jews as special victims. Similarly, Berkhoff demonstrates that while most of the time propagandists equated Nazis and Germans, they did sometimes make a distinction, and as times and circumstances changed, so did their portrayal of the figure of the German. Berkhoff correctly points out that most of the topics of Soviet propaganda had similarities to that of other warrior nations. The Soviets were not alone in portraying their enemies as sub-human, or paying scant attention to the Holocaust, and their propagandists were not the only ones to stress the need for national unity at a time of danger. Berkhoff’s main argument is hardly controversial. The Soviet regime at the time of war was able to control public discourse to an unprecedented degree. The government, namely Stalin, imposed a uniformity that went way beyond what the Nazis managed to achieve. The Bolsheviks were well prepared: their propaganda machine was functioning well way before the outbreak of the war. War-time simply increased controls. Berkhoff’s contribution to the literature is that he can show in greater detail how far that control went and how it was achieved. Although Berkhoff’s stated aim is to describe Soviet propaganda, a good history of propaganda cannot be separated from the general history of the war, and thus the reader will learn much about the sufferings of the peoples of the Soviet Union, as well as the domestic and foreign policies of the regime. SEER, 92, 3, JULY 2014 572 The chief difficulty of writing about propaganda is how to evaluate its success. The key questions here are how much difference did it make, and would the peoples of the Soviet Union have behaved differently had the regime allowed a more liberal public discourse. It is almost impossible to know, since in a totalitarian state public opinion cannot be measured. It is not surprising, therefore, that Berkhoff is unable to answer these questions definitively, but in his examination of them he seems to underestimate the genuine patriotism of the people of the Soviet Union, and the Russians in particular. Many, including Stalin, rightly pointed out that although Russians suffered somewhat less than Ukrainians or Byelorussians, since the fighting took place necessarily to a greater extent in the borderlands, their willingness to fight was nevertheless greater than that of other peoples. In answer to how far propaganda was successful, it can be argued that people heard what they wanted to hear. Also, writers and filmmakers said what they wanted to; they were not coerced, they did not lie. That this happened to coincide with what the Bolshevik leadership wanted them to say created during the war years what could be described, in this sense, and only in this sense, as an oasis of freedom. This coincidence of purpose — the goals of the regime with the convictions of the individual — helps to explain how, after so many years, people still recall this period of extraordinary suffering with pride and nostalgia. It could be that during the war years control was in fact increased. Unlike pre-war propaganda that described a world that never existed which the people well knew did not exist, during the war when...