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    "localId": "294549972",
    "label": "Report by the Department of State, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs",
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    "id": "294549972",
    "sourceUrl": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/294549972",
    "contentType": "document",
    "title": "Report by the Department of State, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs",
    "citationUrl": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/294549972",
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        "President's Secretary's Files (Truman Administration)",
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    "productionDates": [
        {
            "day": 11,
            "logicalDate": "1951-04-11",
            "month": 4,
            "year": 1951
        }
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{
    "seq": 12,
    "pageIndex": 0,
    "type": "photo",
    "url": "https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/presidential-libraries/truman/hst-psf/602191/750373/750373-01-012.tif",
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    "ocrText": "RES TRICTED\nHow does the Russian feeling of guilt differ from the American? Does a Russian\nfeel guilty for thoughts as well as for actions? Does he feel guilty for things done by\nhis group and over which he had no control as well as for things done by him individually?\nIf the hypotheses posed by these latter questions are correct, an additional avenue of\napproach for propaganda exists, but the danger of offending the individual by censuring the\nactions of his group is also increased.\nOn whom or what does the Russian focus hatred? Does he hold the individual re-\npresentative of an institution which is repressing him responsible for the acts of the\ninstitution as a whole or does he feel that someone he knows as a person can never be\nreally guilty and thus focus his hatred on some unknown person or group some degree\nremoved from him? If it is true that in 1917 many Russian peasants went over to the next\nvillage to burn down the landlord's house and barns, there may be support for the latter\nview. Perhaps it is mainly when a Russian has already been galvanized into action\nagainst the unknown group that he hurts the person he knows and then hurts him only as a\nrepresentative of the group he hates. If so, less effect can be gained by trying to focus\nthe hatred of the propaganda recipient on a nearby person than by creating a symbol of\nthe institution or group that is repressing him.\nh. Dangerous Associations\nIn conducting a psychological offensive against the USSR care should be taken to\navoid or nullify the effects of association with certain things which have been standard\nand apparently successful elements in Soviet propaganda, since such association might\nvitiate the effectiveness of the U.S. psychological attack. Such dangerous associations\nobviously include: Tsarist injustice, former landowners, capitalist exploitation, former\nforeign economic concessions, Nazi theories of racial supremacy, and, of course, anti-\nRussianism of all sorts and Austrian-Polish-German efforts to dismember Russia. It\nis suggested that it might be wise to handle the following additional subjects with care for\nthe reasons indicated: Chiang Kai Shek, since Soviet propaganda has apparently success-\nfully made him a symbol of the evils of imperialist and capitalist exploitation; Kerenski\nand the Provisional Government, since recent defectors indicate that many anti-Soviet\nRussians accuse them of spinelessly giving way to the Bolsheviks; Marxist Russian emigres\nemigres since defectors indicate that the desire for private property is making headway\nin the USSR and that another brand of Marxism would have little appeal; the Russian\nOrthodox Church, as distinct from spiritual values and ethics in general, since Soviet\nanti-religious propaganda has apparently had some effect and since defectors indicate\nthat the present church is intensely disliked by some on the grounds that it is thoroughly\ninterpenetrated by the MGB (everything else is too, but this somehow seems revolting);\nthe Vatican and the Catholic Church since these have been used apparently successfully\nby Soviet propaganda as a sinister \"bete noir\"; Churchill for the same reason and\nbecause he has been portrayed as anti-Russian; British imperialism since apparently\nsome traditional anti-British sentiment has successfully been kept alive by Soviet\npropaganda on the grounds of their alleged imperialism and Tito, since disaffected\nSoviets apparently feel he is as bad as Stalin, only less dangerous because less powerful.\n- 10 -"
}