How much did the western world know about the Soviet Union pre-WWII?
Upvote:1
As so often, the answer depends on the specifics. You ask about pre-WWII, yet you mention the GULAG Archipelago published in 1973, long after WWII.
- Read up on McCarthy and the HUAC. They saw Communism as quite horrific, and would go to extraordinary lengths to fight it.
- Long before the Gulag Archipelago was published, the last German POWs had returned from Russian camps. Those who talked told of awful conditions, and many people were prepared to believe them.
- For that matter, there were uprisings in Germany and Hungary. Western media was quite aware of those.
On the other hand, quite a lot of people were all to aware of the shortcomings of capitalism, from the Great Depression to capitalist sponsors of the Nazis. Quite a lot of whataboutism going on.
Upvote:2
It is not clear what exactly you are asking. One thing is the knowledge AVAILABLE, I mean available in principle, to any Westerner who takes an effort to search it. Another thing is how much a random person in the street, who reads major newspapers knows. I do not think Orwell had special access to any information that was not available to other writers on Soviet Union. The problem is with what they wanted to know and see. In all periods of existence of Soviet Union, there were people who escaped from it and published books in the West. But "general public" either did not believe them or did not care.
The fact is that "public opinion" was deceived by Soviet propaganda, very much helped by the propaganda of many left-wing Western writers of high standing. Most people in the West do not realize that Soviet Union (and Modern Russia) has an enormous State-sponsored and highly effective propaganda machine on the scale unimaginable in the West.
To put is short: adequate reports of what is happening in Soviet Union were always available in the West, since the very beginning of Soviet Union. But they did not receive wide attention, for several reasons which I outlined above. And were unknown to the "broad public".
Upvote:2
Politically oriented proletarians in Western Europe were well aware of the nature of the Soviet Union and chose to support or oppose it based on their organised theories of revolution. For example, working class communists in Australia often supported the Soviet Union on the basis of preserving a revolutionary nucleus, rather than on the liberal appeals to intelligentsia that the Soviet Union was a wonderland.(Brecht 1930 The Measures Taken exemplifies this knowing revolutionary defensist position) This can be evidenced by the rapid decline in support for the Soviet Union due to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, rather than due to purges or famines. Right wing social democrats and labourites opposed the Soviet Union based on the large and available non-Bolshevik left emigre literature.
The material was available, cf Strauss /Soviet Russia: Anatomy of a Social History/; Koestler Darkness at Noon; Koestler The Gladiators; the betrayal of the POUM and then CNT-FAI. Let those who had ears, hear.
More post
- 📝 Did the Portuguese build any settlement around the Cape of Good Hope?
- 📝 Was there any mention in historical articles regarding Joan of Arc's physical appearance?
- 📝 What did Japanese architecture look like with heavy materials such as stone, mortar and clay?
- 📝 What does "APT" mean in box 34 of the WD AGO 53-55?
- 📝 "We, who've been connected by blood to Prussia's throne and people since Düppel"
- 📝 Why didn't Thailand have to pay more for its involvement in WW2?
- 📝 Why don't the Americas use ISO paper sizes?
- 📝 When and where was the term "nigra" used and what was its relation to "nigger"?
- 📝 Who was part of the Raznochintsy class in 1800s Russia?
- 📝 How many wars have there been in Europe since WW2?
- 📝 Which countries protested against the Anschluss?
- 📝 Did the British somehow imitate the Greek colonizers in India?
- 📝 Why did the southern states have to be readmitted?
- 📝 Were there established "denominations" for coins of different metals in ancient times?
- 📝 Average ages of US Army officers at the turn of the 20th century
- 📝 Did the Nazi regime always or often prioritize transport trains to the death camps over military transport?
- 📝 Was there a social stigma for British born/living in India prior to WW2/Indian independence?
- 📝 Why were slave armies used?
- 📝 How good were Confederate resupply capabilities during the Gettysburg campaign?
- 📝 Who was Mathilda von Merckens and which was her castle?
- 📝 Did starvation or malnutrition occur in indigenous American societies?
- 📝 How did Egypt become a protectorate of the British empire?
- 📝 Was there a Stick-Grenade prior to the Stielhandgranate?
- 📝 Why did Drexler acquiesce to Hitler's demand?
- 📝 Did Wilson's 'He kept us out of war' really win the 1916 Presidential Election?
- 📝 How much is known about the Earl of Sandwich's sandwich?
- 📝 Under what circumstances did feudal rulers grant land to someone new?
- 📝 What was the opinion of Hitler regarding p**nography?
- 📝 Did Saint Paul preach at the Theater in Philippi?
- 📝 When did the Arabic numerals appear on clock faces?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 How much did the western world know about the Soviet Union pre-WWII?
- 📝 How much resemblance did the industrialization of the Soviet Union bear to those of the rest of the world?
- 📝 How did a criminal trial in the Soviet Union work after World War 2?
- 📝 How many rapes did the Wehrmacht commit in the Soviet Union during World War II?
- 📝 What did Germany do in World War II about the different rail gauge in the Soviet Union?
- 📝 Did Churchill and Roosevelt know about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, or the following secret pacts between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union?
- 📝 Why did the Soviet Union not "grant" Inner Mongolia to Mongolia after World War Two?
- 📝 Did the Soviet Union know when DEFCON levels changed?
- 📝 How much contact did Sub-Saharan Africa actually have with the rest of the world since the beginning of civilization?
- 📝 Are there ways to measure "how much power did "Russia" lose when the Soviet Union broke up?"
- 📝 How much did we know about heredity pre-Mendel?
- 📝 How did the Soviet Union officially justify the need for foreign travel and emigration restrictions?
- 📝 How did Western leaders justify NATO's eastwards expansion after promising the Soviet leadership it won't happen?
- 📝 How did Vasco da Gama know about the Southern Cross?
- 📝 How did the Soviet press talk about the opposing forces (mujahideens) during the Soviet-Afghan war?
- 📝 How and Why Did the Soviet Union Collapse?
- 📝 Did the Soviet Union get a net border gain from China during World War II?
- 📝 What did Kennedy know about Soviet missiles during the Cuban missile crisis?
- 📝 How did the Soviet Union support the development of their atomic bomb in 1949?
- 📝 Why did Hitler attack the Soviet Union when he was still busy fighting the United Kingdom?
- 📝 Why didn't Imperial Japan attack the Soviet Union during World War 2?
- 📝 Why did Britain and France not declare war against the Soviet Union when it invaded Poland in WW2?
- 📝 How did pilots know when to release bombs on airplanes during World War2?
- 📝 How did such a relatively minor event as the assassination of an archduke start World War I?
- 📝 How did the Nazis plan to defeat America during World War II?
- 📝 Why did the Soviet Union have multiple airplane manufacturers?
- 📝 Why did the Soviet Union name their strongest bomb Tsar Bomba?
- 📝 Why did the Soviet Union lift the Berlin Blockade?
- 📝 Why did the Soviet Union out-pace the US during the space-race?
- 📝 How did the ruling class in the Muslim world react to the discovery and colonization of the Americas?