Propaganda in the World and Local Conflicts

15-26

Authors: Аndrii E. Lebid

This paper explores some of the key themes of Soviet anti-US visual propaganda in Krokodil, a satirical literary-artistic magazine. The author examines some of the key ways of disseminating this type of Soviet propaganda. The paper explores its manifestations across the physical, information, and virtual domains. The work reveals that Soviet propaganda used to be a tool for building the “right” model of the world by way of contrasting heroics with anti-heroics in Soviet-American relations. These relations were interpreted in Soviet visual propaganda both as an inter-national conflict and as an antagonism between the socio-political conditions that the USSR and the US were in during the Cold War. It is suggested that this visual propaganda, which concurrently influenced the cognitive, emotional-volitional, and communicative subsystems of the human mind, was aimed at building the picture of a world in which a happy citizen lives in a just state. An attempt is made to prove that at the time this type of propaganda performed an ideological function and was a key means of conducting ideological work in the USSR as part of its clash with world imperialism and capitalism.

38-43

Authors: Joshua M. Giron-Gonzalez

This paper addresses the use of messenger pigeons for intelligence and propaganda purposes during World War I. The author describes the mechanism underlying the use of messenger pigeons by France and England on the Western Front against Germany. In putting this work together, the author drew upon various sources of private origin, including the reminiscences of Chief of the Intelligence Service of the German High Command Colonel Walter Nicolai. The author also made use of some narrowly specialized literature on the subject, including regulations dealing with the use of messenger pigeons in the army. The following methods were employed: (1) the chronological method (to examine the issue in the chronological order it developed in); (2) the comparative method (to compare the efforts of the participating nations in terms of the use of pigeon stations and pigeon post services); (3) the generalization method (to identify the common and distinctive features of the use of messenger pigeons during World War I for intelligence and propaganda purposes). The author’s conclusion is that by the start of World War I the opposing sides had amassed extensive experience in the use of pigeons for war purposes. During the military confrontation, the participating nations continued to explore pigeons’ potential as messengers with a view to employing them further not only for prompt delivery of information but for intelligence and propaganda purposes as well. With that said, these practices were reported to be quite efficient at certain stages of the war.