Psychological WarfareLinebarger, Paul Myron Anthony
History
Psychological Warfare
Linebarger, Paul Myron Anthony
Psychological warfare
What was the net effect of such psychological warfare? In the first
place, much use of common terms without regard to ultimate fulfillment
means that Communist propaganda is self-defeating. It can succeed only
in situations of desperation, anarchy, or terror. That is satisfactory
to the Communist leaders, because they think their _science_ tells them
that the capitalist states will lead to desperation, anarchy and terror
anyhow. Secondly, Communist propaganda sacrifices all other values to
the propaganda. One has to be a religious fanatic (of the Marxist sort)
to turn it out; one has to be ready for a totally new creed in order to
keep on accepting it. International understanding, patriotism,
truthfulness, freedom of action, artistic conscience--all these are
sacrificed to propaganda. In the end, _everything is propaganda_ to the
Communist. Nothing which hurts Communism can be true. They have their
_science_. (If you would like to look at this fabulous _science_, read
_The Communist Manifesto_, V. I. Lenin's _The Teachings of Karl Marx_,
and Stalin's latest current compilation of speeches. You will be
impressed by the crazy logic, the genuine but ill-informed zeal.) Third
and most important, Communist psychological warfare is continuous. The
themes may change--sometimes provocative, sometimes almost
conciliatory--but the machinery, the operation, does not. Communist
propaganda is therefore seasoned and professional, dependent on a
powerful police-state at home and on uneducated or emotionally ill
fanatics abroad, except for those few countries where Communism is so
stable as to attract hard-headed or practical idealistic men.
This Bolshevik success, rather than the splendid but short-lasting
accomplishments of the Allies in World War I, kept psychological warfare
on the map. Modern Communism is permanent psychological warfare in
action.
The Communist leaders unwittingly made a tremendous mistake between 1922
and 1927. They invited the military and political staff of the Chinese
Nationalists (Kuomintang) to cooperate with them. Filled with their own
Communist sense of certainty, it never occurred to them that anyone else
could outsmart them. The Chinese did. Their military chief of mission in
Moscow learned everything that the Communists had to teach about
irregular fighting, subversive propaganda, revolutionary situations,
mass agitation. He then went home and got more Communist aid to carry
out the military phase of the Nationalist revolution, which started
under way in the summer of 1922. The old war-lord armies were helpless
in the face of agents, agitators, poster crews, student strikes, press
propaganda and indoctrinated troops. The most sensational war in modern
Asia involved relatively little combat. The Nationalist leader used all
the Communist psychological warfare techniques, and added a few more of
his own. His name was Chiang Kai-shek.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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