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Alexander McGregor has produced some most welcome updated variations on the basic theme, concentrating on the visual arts, especially the cinema. There is no doubt that Soviet and American films made a great impact throughout the world. However, according to widespread belief, they were made with different aims. On the one hand, apparently, Hollywood was devoted to the accumulation of wealth via the provision of popular entertainment. On the other, Sovfilm was explicitly directed at the education and exhortation of the masses. Moreover, from the Western point of view at any rate, the USA comprised a free society, while the USSR was totalitarian.
As McGregor makes clear, Hollywood also wanted to convey a message. In the difficult years following the Great Depression, the ‘establishment’ exerted its influence on the ‘culture producers’, seeking celebration of an idealised version of the American way of life. Thus, there was little essential difference with the ‘socialist realism’ as interpreted by the other ‘establishment’ over in Moscow. On both sides, heroes were stereotypes, as were villains.
Of course, the USA and the USSR cannot be equated in every respect. But McGregor makes no such claim, insisting that his emphasis is indeed on the shaping of popular consent. Even in this restricted manner, his argument will almost certainly provoke some readers to high indignation. However, nobody reading the book could deny the clarity of its exposition, and the originality of its author’s viewpoint. Personally, I am persuaded that McGregor’s work obliges us to think again about many of the presuppositions of Cold War historiography.
Professor Paul Dukes
University of Aberdeen, Scotland