The Bear and the Dragon: Represenatations of Communism in Early Sixties American Culture

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

By early 1960s, American attitudes toward Soviet Union began to alter. Instead of Soviets being represented in entertainment media as an inhuman threat, as was case in early 1950s propaganda films such as Invasion USA, a process of looking at Soviets, both government and people, in a more favorable light emerged. With this shift in perception in United States, images of China as demonic Red force began to supplant postwar images of a brutal and monstrous Russia. As a result of examining government propaganda films, television shows, Hollywood films, and sociological studies, in this essay I explore crucial shift in anti-Communist sentiment from a stance that demonized Soviets to one that made China most frightening of Cold War threats. In early Sixties, foreign policies of both Khrushchev and Kennedy administrations began to promote friendlier relations between two superpowers. Indeed, American Military History, a textbook published by Center of Military History, period of early Sixties is portrayed as a time of reconciliation between two superpowers. Kennedy's policy of flexible response brought about a lessening of threat of nuclear by stressing the need for ready non-nuclear forces as a deterrent to limited war (Global Pressures). And at same time, United States' military policy was seeking to lessen threat of nuclear confrontation between two superpowers, many Americans were beginning to view Russian people not as monstrous drones of a totalitarian system, but as human beings very much like themselves. During this time period, Irving R. Levine's Main Street, USSR became a best-selling book that painted a picture of Soviet Union not as some fantastic mythical land, but as a place of real people with recognizably human lives and struggles. Levine, who worked for NBC in Moscow for four years, was first accredited US correspondent to operate in Soviet Union. He captured a huge audience for Main Street, U.S.S.R., because of inside information book provided about life in Soviet Union. Levine's study presents a humanizing vision of both Russian people and Soviet government and does so in several important ways. Thus, for example, book points out hatred of that was then dominant element in collective social psyche of Soviet Union. Levine comments that fear of war, and especially propaganda that tries to convince Russians that capitalistic nations have aggressive intentions, motivates Russians to ask Western visitors, Why do you want war? or Are you for peace? (14) Levine's text emphasizes intense fear of that was then felt by a country that had suffered truly catastrophic loss of life in both World War I and World War II, a fear that had led to an absence of nuclear culture in country, an absence underscored by fact that civil defense drills and visible air-raid shelter signs, commonplaces of postwar US life, were absent in Russia because Soviet government feared that near-hysteria might be created among a populace which has known as intimately and tragically as Russia's if alarms were given simply to conform with external propaganda. (168) Levine further humanized Russians by emphasizing that average Russian did not hate American people. His book discusses a radio commentator who explained to him that of course we feel friendly toward American people. Neither our radio nor our newspapers have any complaint against American people. It is only American ruling circles whom we attack for seeking war. (72) Yet in midst of a train of developments through which political policy and sociological studies were gradually furthering a more humane Western Cold War attitude toward Russians, a crisis suddenly erupted that severely tested this new attitude. …