Are the Soviets Winning the Propaganda War?

Abstract

The Soviet Union is adept at exploiting her tech nological and other achievements to make news around the world. The general impression to be gained from the press over the last several years and at the present time is that the Soviets have been ahead in the propaganda war and, perhaps, in other matters as well. The question is of goals and of how to achieve them. It can be granted that the peoples of both sides want peace. Their governments seek to obtain it for them in different ways. The Soviet Union believes that the way to maintain peace is to establish physical police control over more and more territory until all the world is united. The United States has sought an ordered world through strengthening a voluntary association of states, namely, the United Nations, which the Soviet Union has sought to destroy. Actually, the ideological conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union is a short-term problem. More basic and more abiding in the sense of history are the issues of na tionalism and the revolution of rising expectations. National ism has caused wars in the past, and it is apt to do so in the future as long as nations depend on their own power for their security. In this generation, advances in communications and transportation have made underprivileged and underdevel oped people everywhere conscious of higher standards of liv ing, and they seek these standards for their own. The issue of communism is important, but no war or peace will be won until the issue of nationalism and the revolution of rising ex pectations are successfully met.—Ed.