From World War to Cold War: Scandinavian media attitudes to the Soviet Union 1945–1948

Abstract

At the end of the war in Europe in 1945, an alliance-loyalty attitude was predominant among the Scandinavian public voices on the Soviet Union. This attitude incorporated a favourable image of the Soviet war effort and implied that the Soviet system had undergone changes during the war. Another significant group supported the Soviet system more unequivocally. These attitudes were dominant in the Scandinavian media and public debate until late 1945 or early 1946, when opposition to and fear of the Soviet Union began to be openly expressed in conservative and social-democratic newspapers. A bipartisan attitude to the Soviet Union had not developed at this stage, as the alliance-loyalty attitude was transformed into a clearer third-voice attitude that saw the Soviet Union on the one hand as a power which was not worthy of imitation, but which on the other hand accepted that the Soviet Union was seeking international peace and cooperation. Third-voice supporters in the Scandinavian media sought investigative reports on conditions in the Soviet Union, as they claimed that the growing anti-Soviet attitudes were based on a lack of accurate knowledge. Considering that Denmark, Norway and Sweden had experienced different conditions during the war, the differences in public attitudes to the Soviet Union were comparatively small. The public third voice on the Soviet Union was clearly weakened in 1948 by the reception of more critical information on the Soviet system and the perception of news on international developments.