DOCSLIB.ORG

Joseph E. Davies Mission to Moscow Simon and Schuster:1941 Many

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Joseph E. Davies Mission to Moscow Simon and Schuster:1941 Many Joseph E. Davies Mission to Moscow Simon and Schuster:1941 Many people went to Russia in the mid 1930's. Lib als and radicals went in order to see this "new order" which to some extent they either sympatheized with or were outright partisans of. Many of them came away disappointed, shocked or saddened. Other, like Joseph Davies, v t diplomatically and came back with apparently more enthusiasm and attachment to the Soviet Union, not ideologically but due perhaps to some of the very reasons others were discouraged. The revolution had lost its impetus, socialism had proved a failure and the Russian state was increasingly dependent upon the incentives and methods of pre-revolutionary Russia. The state was totalitarian and tyrannical, yet it was also increasingly "conservative". "The governing powers have...ben compelled to 9 abandon most of their communistic principles". Mission to Moscow is tt in th ff f the journal notes, diaries and diplomatic and personal letters which Davies wrote from the end of 1936 through 1939, 'si also some less complete comments covering the period from 1939 until 1941. He discusses the economic development in Russia, the political conditions (the purges, the 1936 Constitution, the "terror", etc), and Russia's foreign relations. Although the book has a reputation as being "naive" (communistic according to the McCarthysl) I felt that if one sifts through the material one has all the data to document a modern liberal's detestation of Soviet domestic and foreign policy, as well as much of the material unfortunately still ignnred by our State Department which is of essential propagandistic use to disenchant the millions of "enchanted" in Europe and Asia. For Russian foreign propaganda, in contrast perhaps to her domestic variety, is still based on the radical and socialist ideology of the Revolution, which as Davies points out, has in fact long been actually abandoned in R ssia iteself. Whether it has been abandoned due to th limits of "human nature" or for other reasons is to some extent irrelevant here. But there is no doubt, and Davies observations and conversations make this vividly clear, that the idea of a classlesss" -2- society, the objective of "equality", of democracy, freedom, creativity, internationalism, all these highly appealing slogans and concepts have been abandoned and destroyed (and within Russia today are, in fact, considered "bourgeois" concepts). Yet these are the cornerstones of Russian propagandistic influence. Davies presents an excellent analysis of the nature of the new Soviet 61lass system f"the government itself is a bureaucracy with all the indicia of a class"). Likewise his quotes from various statements made by Russian and foreign diplomats on the purpose of foreign CP'S (as an arm of nationalistic foreign and military policy rather than revolutionary independent action) could well be chimed around the world. Nevertheless Davies does many other services for the USSR, even while doing ~ them ts disservice (~ihe-ay, -n mru.haf di.~u-nice- atig th;b t+ t.4 when Russianpr e was aimedreaimed att rionaryou te zr g u"pil A . He clearly.49 accepts the Russian rp a version of the 1936 as '37 purges, even while he dislikes the trial methods*. , Likewise he skips quickly over the German-Russian pact period and the nature of the propaganda which the Soviet Union and their CP tools were spreading (poking A fun at democracy, calling "fascism a matter of taste", etc). His conclusions seem naive today (in 1942 they were deemed essential in order to pump enthusiasm for Russia into the American people), "Communism hold no serious threat to the United States". Of course if he means the "communism" which Russia has long abandoned the statement is self-evident, but if he means the nationalistic, totalitarian, expansive Soviet state this contention is certainly in retrospect a tragic and naive one. It is in this confusion between his understanding of the new nonsowialist ideology of the present Soviet state and his inability to grasp the implications of the new ideology that Davies seems most naive. On one hand he claims to prefer Russia to Germany since communism has ideologically some kinship with Christianity and on the other hand it is this very elemnet of the Communist ideology which has been most thoroughy destroyed. 3 -- -- -3- Nevertheless I wish to emphasize the fact that despite the perniciousness of many of his conclusions and the questionablness of some of his fatsts, and despite the obvious friendly overtones of the book (with its warm pr4#se of Stalin and his gentle eyes), much of it is still valuable to the understanding of Russia today, and all of it is valuable toward understanding American-Russian relations in that transitional and fateful period between 1936 and 1942..
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Course of World War II Class 4 William A
    The Course of World War II Class 4 William A. Reader [email protected] The Nazi-Soviet Pact Hitler on Poland On 28 March 1939, Hitler denounced the 1934 Non-Aggression Pact with Poland and had his military begin preparations for an invasion of Poland Hitler had two problems with Poland • Situated between Germany and Russia, Poland barred the invasion route into Russia • Poland had a large German population and territories that Hitler felt belonged to Germany To ensure the quiet eastern border that Hitler desired for his attack on France, Poland had to subordinate itself to Germany Hitler on Poland - 2 To Hitler, Polish subordination meant • Joining the Anti-Comintern Pact • Ceding Danzig and predominantly-German areas to Germany • Allowing Germany to build a highway across the Polish corridor While Poland was willing to negotiate over Danzig and allow Germany to build a highway across the Polish Corridor, it would not cede territory to Germany nor join the Anti-Comintern Pact This led Hitler to decide on an invasion of Poland • It also led him to seek an agreement with Stalin Stalin’s View of Nazism Stalin saw National Socialism as simply a nastier form of monopoly capitalism – more brutal than the capitalism of the Western democracies but essentially the same • Stalin did not realize that Hitler and the Nazis were racist ideologues committed to expansion eastward and to the replacement of Russians by Germans as the population of Western Russia • What Stalin did not understand was that, under Hitler, Germany’s capitalist and economic
    [Show full text]
  • Academy Award® Winner the Adventures of Robin Hood
    ACADEMY AWARD® WINNER THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD (1938) SCREENING SPOTLIGHTS THE PRODUCTION DESIGNS OF CARL JULES WEYL PRESENTED BY THE ART DIRECTORS GUILD FILM SOCIETY AND AMERICAN CINEMATHEQUE Sunday, June 28 at 5:30 PM at the Aero Theatre in Hollywood LOS ANGELES, June 17, 2015 - The Art Directors Guild (ADG) Film Society and American Cinematheque will present a screening of Errol Flynn’s swashbuckling adventure fantasy THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD (1938) spotlighting the production design by Academy Award®- winning designer Carl Jules Weyl, as part of the 2015 ADG Film Series on Sunday, June 28, at 5:30 P.M. at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica. The ADG “Confessions of a Production Designer” Film Series is sponsored by The Hollywood Reporter. “Welcome to Sherwood, my lady!” Legendary, beloved, much imitated but never surpassed, The Adventures of Robin Hood is pure escapism epitomizing the very best in classical Hollywood matinee adventure storytelling. Rich in its visual imagination, it remains a case study in film design excellence. Inspired by the romantic illustrations of famed illustrator and artist N.C. Wyeth, Carl Jules Weyl’s masterful designs served well this Warner Bros.’ first venture into three-strip Technicolor productions. “The Adventures of Robin Hood remains a fitting tribute to the achievements and talent of this exceptional designer, as well as being a reminder of the many less celebrated but equally gifted masters of design who have left us with a visually-inspired legacy,” said Production Designer Thomas A. Walsh,
    [Show full text]
  • Gilmour on Bennett, 'One World, Big Screen: Hollywood, the Allies, and World War II'
    H-War Gilmour on Bennett, 'One World, Big Screen: Hollywood, the Allies, and World War II' Review published on Saturday, June 1, 2013 M. Todd Bennett. One World, Big Screen: Hollywood, the Allies, and World War II. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012. xiii + 362 pp. $39.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8078-3574-6. Reviewed by Colin Gilmour (McGill University) Published on H-War (June, 2013) Commissioned by Margaret Sankey M. Todd Bennett’s One World, Big Screen opens to the dichotomy of the well-known photograph of Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin as a seated trio at the Tehran Conference in 1943, and a lesser-known image of the same scene but from a further vantage point. The crowd of newspapermen and photographers visible in the second image, Bennett notes, speaks to the behind- the-scenes engineering which made possible the temporary unity of the three very different leaders and countries. Like this latter photo, One World, Big Screen aims to take “a fresh approach that reveals a transnational cultural dimension to the historical rise of the United Nations, World War II, and foreign relations more broadly” (p. 2). The book begins by documenting the parallel developments of film and propaganda in the United States before American entry into the war in December 1941. After documenting the interwar debate over propaganda as a legitimate tool for communicating political aims or an “un-American” trick (p. 25), Bennett chronicles the development of the partnership between Hollywood and interventionist policymakers after the onset of the Second World War.
    [Show full text]
  • Ronald Davis Oral History Collection on the Performing Arts
    Oral History Collection on the Performing Arts in America Southern Methodist University The Southern Methodist University Oral History Program was begun in 1972 and is part of the University’s DeGolyer Institute for American Studies. The goal is to gather primary source material for future writers and cultural historians on all branches of the performing arts- opera, ballet, the concert stage, theatre, films, radio, television, burlesque, vaudeville, popular music, jazz, the circus, and miscellaneous amateur and local productions. The Collection is particularly strong, however, in the areas of motion pictures and popular music and includes interviews with celebrated performers as well as a wide variety of behind-the-scenes personnel, several of whom are now deceased. Most interviews are biographical in nature although some are focused exclusively on a single topic of historical importance. The Program aims at balancing national developments with examples from local history. Interviews with members of the Dallas Little Theatre, therefore, serve to illustrate a nation-wide movement, while film exhibition across the country is exemplified by the Interstate Theater Circuit of Texas. The interviews have all been conducted by trained historians, who attempt to view artistic achievements against a broad social and cultural backdrop. Many of the persons interviewed, because of educational limitations or various extenuating circumstances, would never write down their experiences, and therefore valuable information on our nation’s cultural heritage would be lost if it were not for the S.M.U. Oral History Program. Interviewees are selected on the strength of (1) their contribution to the performing arts in America, (2) their unique position in a given art form, and (3) availability.
    [Show full text]
  • Backstairs Mission in Moscow 9
    Listen to the man wh k what goes on in RedoR no~s ussra: Sl.OO. "This is truth undilut d Such is the value pi d e . •·. a Warning to alii" who ace upon this b k · · ~pent 12 years in the Forb·dd oo . by Father :Brau" ' en Land of the ·Soviets I was greatly interested in reading ~Backataira. Mission in Mosc.ow. 8 It is a very original and sincere presentation. This book obvioualy has not the least pretention of being an essay or treatise and most of all, its author is not trying to prove a point. One does not have to be a philosopher, an ecom- a diplomat to understand, as this narra- ' · mist or .; tive illustrates, that fear and utter disenchant­ ment are the prevalent sentiments of the good people he observed. That is the sustained thought emanating from Charles Ciliberti 1 s exp~s .e • . Without calculation and. without the artifice ot =·' studied phrases, this book gives a surprisingly. ··. :. truthful . and penetrating picture o:f the depl,or;-::( ? endured by a lovable people. · · . ..: ; . · able reality '!! ·;_ -· . ..~ Truth undiluted comes out :from the reading of · this book. The truth that. an iron curtain doe·s exist, where suppressed and hideous realitie's on .·., a stupendous scale make us feel . so glad · and grate­ ful to be livillE!: under applied principles ., of democracy. It is ~ earnest hope that this vivid descriP-. tion -- whicn is also a warning-- will ,reach the ears and minds of the unsuspecting ~blic. ' ~ ~ '..... c:x:._ "< ofc. .f./ J -:;j. 4~ · 1(A · i ' 1 12 Years Behind the Iro ,.
    [Show full text]
  • Ffiluyjjs in YOUR
    Davies Sees Stalin Japanese Labeled And Delivers Letter 'Our Particular Foe' SPORT CENTER From Roosevelt By James Roosevelt WAIST A Long, Friendly Talk Troops' Eagerness for Fray In Kremlin Gives No WiFi Win Pacific War, Hint of Reaction ! President's Son Says By the Associated Press. My th« Associated Prats. SUMMER SUIT MOSCOW, May' 21.—Special Envoy BEVERLY HILLS, Calif., May 31. E. Davies conferred with Joseph —Terming the Japanese "our par- Premier Stalin at the Kremlin last ticular foe,” Lt. Col. James Roose- night and delivered President Roose- velt has warned that only a hard ! fight and complete victory, with velt's secret message—a letter that forces now being assembled, can some quarters con- thought might frustrate Nipponese dreams of em- THAT WILL SEE tain an invitation to a personal pire. The meeting with other Allied leaders. Marine Corps officer, recup- at his home Mr. Davies was presented to the erating here from an illness Russian political and military chief contracted six weeks ago, by Admiral William H. Standley, the recently returned from the Orient. He declared in an interview IN YOUR American Ambassador, and was ac- yes- companied to the meeting by Vya- terday : "Our ffilUyjjS cheslav Molotov, Soviet commissar problem Is still one of great distances in for foreign afTairs, with whom he the Pacific a^ea, but LEISURE previously had conferred at length. we are steadily gaining strength for the battles of the Tass, official Soviet news agency, major future. IKTH^ on the other has told of the meeting in a brief state- Japan, hand, reached the where she con- ment early but no de- point is TIME .
    [Show full text]
  • End of the 'Low, Dishonest Decade': Failure of the Anglo-Franco-Soviet Alliance in 1939 Author(S): Michael Jabara Carley Source: Europe-Asia Studies, Vol
    End of the 'Low, Dishonest Decade': Failure of the Anglo-Franco-Soviet Alliance in 1939 Author(s): Michael Jabara Carley Source: Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 45, No. 2 (1993), pp. 303-341 Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/152863 Accessed: 12/09/2009 06:36 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=taylorfrancis. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Taylor & Francis, Ltd. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Europe-Asia Studies. http://www.jstor.org EUROPE-ASIASTUDIES, Vol.
    [Show full text]
  • Russia's Heroes 1941–45
    152 RUSSIA’S HEROES 1941–45 Albert Axell London: Robinson Books, 2002 264 pages (nine maps, 24 photos included) ISBN: 978-1-84119-534-6 R168.00, Soft cover It is seldom that one comes across a work where history-writing and qualitative research meet succinctly. Add to this an author who communicates crisply and relates real-life narratives that capture and hold the reader’s attention. This is such a work. The author read history but did more than that. Since 1960, Axell has interviewed dozens of veterans of all genders, from soldiers to marshals, who took part in the battles on the Eastern Front. Through his reading of history, close acquaintanceship with the Soviet Union and Russian-speaking society, and multiple interviews, Axell brings the experience of the individual and group up close and personal. Although the work is entitled Russia’s Heroes, the author vividly demonstrates that war is deeply destructive and brings about more than just burning oil, dust, mud, snow, sweat and tears. Organised mass conflict is dehumanising in the extreme. The work shows that heroes are often ordinary people acting out of conviction or sheer necessity, and that villains are frequently driven not (only) by greed or creed, but by arrogance and habitually overrating their own capabilities. The Eastern Front saw more than 50 major battles, and at different times, the two sides had 8–12 million soldiers confronting one another across vast landscapes. Until the Allied landings, the numbers of Axis divisions thrown against the Soviets were 20 times greater than the divisions deployed against the Allied Forces (p.xv).
    [Show full text]
  • SAVANT BOOK REVIEW Tuesday December 5, 2017
    SAVANT BOOK REVIEW Tuesday December 5, 2017 Hello! A Book Review today, and a very positive one. Good books about film directors are not easy to come by, and when a real winner surfaces like Bernard Eisenschitz’s book on Nicholas Ray or Foster Hirsch’s on Otto Preminger, I take notice. Joining those for reference-quality value and getting an A+ for sheer entertainment, Alan K. Rode’s Michael Curtiz A Life in Film is engaging from the start and doesn’t let up. Curtiz is different because he was never a cult director or one likely to be studied from an academic viewpoint — he was an artisan that for the bulk of his career worked at just one studio. But he had a terrific, recognizable style and made more ‘great’ golden age Hollywood pictures than anybody — Errol Flynn swashbucklers, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Casablanca, Mildred Pierce, White Christmas among them. He wasn’t an outright rebel or a hyphenate that generated his own scripts; he didn’t have highly personal themes to express. He also did everything — high adventure, literary adaptations, tense thrillers, ‘women’s dramas’ and even light comedies. Although Curtiz tangled with his studio bosses Jack Warner and Hal Wallis as much as anybody, before this book all I really knew about him was that he had made silent films in Hungary, and that he tied mogul Sam Goldwyn for quoted malapropisms, the most famous being “Bring on the empty horses,” from The Charge of the Light Brigade. With a sure hand, good research and a knack for amusing ironies, author Rode really brings Curtiz to life.
    [Show full text]
  • The University of Arizona
    Erskine Caldwell, Margaret Bourke- White, and the Popular Front (Moscow 1941) Item Type text; Electronic Dissertation Authors Caldwell, Jay E. Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 05/10/2021 10:56:28 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/316913 ERSKINE CALDWELL, MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE, AND THE POPULAR FRONT (MOSCOW 1941) by Jay E. Caldwell __________________________ Copyright © Jay E. Caldwell 2014 A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 2014 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE As members of the Dissertation Committee, we certify that we have read the dissertation prepared by Jay E. Caldwell, titled “Erskine Caldwell, Margaret Bourke-White, and the Popular Front (Moscow 1941),” and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ________________________________________________ Date: 11 February 2014 Dissertation Director: Jerrold E. Hogle _______________________________________________________________________ Date: 11 February 2014 Daniel F. Cooper Alarcon _______________________________________________________________________ Date: 11 February 2014 Jennifer L. Jenkins _______________________________________________________________________ Date: 11 February 2014 Robert L. McDonald _______________________________________________________________________ Date: 11 February 2014 Charles W. Scruggs Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon the candidate’s submission of the final copies of the dissertation to the Graduate College.
    [Show full text]
  • Politics and Film: Propaganda and Its Influence During the Cold War
    Politics and Film: Propaganda and Its Influence During the Cold War Heather Bullis Carnegie Vanguard High School INTRODUCTION During the seminar Great Films and How They Shaped American Politics, I have focused on the connection and influence of films and literature. Films and literature have always been great representatives of what is going on in society. War, religion, education, civil rights, and the economy are a few of the important topics that concern people. Their opinions on these subjects form the bases of how they vote, which paves the way of America’s future. Whenever I speak to my students about these subjects, they tend to regurgitate what their parents, friends, or the media feel. It is difficult to get them to form their own opinion. One way that I hope to help them with this is through the analysis of propaganda. My students are freshmen at Carnegie Vanguard. The Vanguard program is a magnet program for gifted and talented (GT) students. It centers on offering students of all backgrounds a chance to control and shape their own education. Teachers are encouraged to have student- centered classes and instruction. These students are unique because they need the freedom to explore topics as deeply as they wish. Differentiated instruction is fully embraced and employed at Carnegie. GT students often have outstanding abilities and are capable of accomplishing more than an average student. Because of this, one of the main problems teachers face with GT students is keeping them engaged in the lesson. If GT students lose interest in the lesson or topic, it is very difficult to get them to do any of the work.
    [Show full text]
  • A Tribute to Michael Curtiz 1973
    Delta Kappa Alpha and the Division of Cinema of the University of Southern California present: tiz November-4 * Passage to Marseilles The Unsuspected Doctor X Mystery of the Wax Museum November 11 * Tenderloin 20,000 Years in Sing Sing Jimmy the Gent Angels with Dirty Faces November 18 * Virginia City Santa Fe Trail The Adventures of Robin Hood The Sea Hawk December 1 Casablanca t December 2 This is the Army Mission to Moscow Black Fury Yankee Doodle Dandy December 9 Mildred Pierce Life with Father Charge of the Light Brigade Dodge City December 16 Captain Blood The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex Night and Day I'll See You in My Dreams All performances will be held in room 108 of the Cinema Department. Matinees will start promptly at 1:00 p.m., evening shows at 7:30 p.m. A series of personal appearances by special guests is scheduled for 4:00 p.m. each Sunday. Because of limited seating capacity, admission will be on a first-come, first-served basis, with priority given to DKA members and USC cinema students. There is no admission charge. * If there are no conflicts in scheduling, these programs will be repeated in January. Dates will be announced. tThe gala performance of Casablanca will be held in room 133 of Founders Hall at 8:00 p.m., with special guests in attendance. Tickets for this event are free, but due to limited seating capacity, must be secured from the Cinema Department office (746-2235). A Mmt h"dific Uredrr by Arthur Knight This extended examination of the films of Michael Only in very recent years, with the abrupt demise of Curtiz is not only long overdue, but also altogether Hollywood's studio system, has it become possible to appropriate for a film school such as USC Cinema.
    [Show full text]