One hundred years of hatred for the Russians. What did the fear of Russia drive America to?
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Weekly “Argumenty i Fakty” No. 37. With all the consequences. What is pouring from the tap 09/14/2022
70 years ago, 19 September 1952 on on the Queen Elizabeth liner, going from America to England, the world famous actor and director Charles Spencer Chaplin< /strong> has received word that it is no longer allowed to enter the US.
Or rather, not at all. The telegram stated that an entry permit could be obtained, but “a commission from the Department of Immigration would have to respond to a number of charges of a political nature.” Behind the department was the FBI, which ran a campaign to “investigate un-American activities.” In fact, Chaplin fell under the rink of Russophobic hysteria that swept the US elite. In places, the hysteria took on very gloomy forms — in April 1949 with diagnosis "nervous and"mental exhaustion, depression" was fired and placed in a clinic by US Secretary of DefenseJames Forrestal. During his illness, he repeated more than once: “The Russians are coming … They are everywhere. I saw Russian soldiers. In May, the ex-minister jumped out of the window.
In a word, the degree of tension in society was high, which Charlie Chaplin wrote in his autobiography and : "I with pleasure answered that I would only be glad not to breathe this air poisoned with hatred, and that everything this got me fed up. Since 1948 they conducted conversations” FBI officers. According to protocols, "anti-American activities" the actor was in his sympathy for people of the "wrong" nationality: “You wrote an appeal called “Russia, is the future for you”?” — “Yes.” Who exactly did you contact and — “I did it at the request of the Russians, who at that time were our allies. It is addressed by me to Soviet Russia. did you receive the staff of the Russian consulate? — “I” knew the Russian consul. An excellent person, although we met twice. I don feel no enmity towards Russia… Maybe I don understand the situation, but I must admit that I have always been convinced that if we manage to come to an will only go to the benefit.
“If Russia wins”
Everything was blamed on Chaplin: public calls for the opening of a second front during the war, and the fact that at the he began his speech with the words: “Dear comrades.” According to the protocols, it is clear that the fears of the FBI officers were caused not by abstract “agents of communism”, but by specific Russians. The words “Soviet” or “communist” there are much less common than “Russia” and "Russian".
This was also characteristic of the American press. What could not disturb the Russian emigration. A native of Poltava Boris Brazolbefore the war, he was known as a writer and public figure, who, according to his views, adjoined the Nazis and was proud of the fact that he “wrote books that will bring more evil to the Jews than a dozen pogroms.” Believing that things could come to & nbsp; the persecution of all Russian emigrants, he launched a vigorous activity & nbsp; & mdash; autumn 1950 & nbsp; a memorandum was sent to influential individuals and institutions, among which was the US Library of Congress, a memorandum on the inadmissibility of confusion of the concepts of “Russia” and communism”, with reminders of the historical achievements of Russia and the Russian people. Reaction to memorandum was lukewarm — it did not correspond to the mood in society, which was fueled by posters “If Russia wins.” One of the pictures showed a gigantic boot trampling on the chest of an American housewife. And the caption: “If the communist conquest takes place, American men will be sterilized, and our women will be helpless under the boots of Asian Russians.”
The emigrants had every reason to fear punitive action. This was already the second Russophobic campaign in the USA. (The first — in 1919 1920 they were deported to Soviet Russia on the “Buford” steamer, which was nicknamed the “Red Ark”; and & nbsp; which was ahead of the Soviet “Philosophical Steamboat” for for three years.
It is much less often remembered that during Palmer, more than 10 thousand people were arrested without warrants. Russian emigrants, most of the public organizations of the Russian diaspora were destroyed. The Russians were firmly entrenched in an almost official status of “suspicious and” unreliable. The Russian diaspora, in contrast to the German, Italian, Jewish or Chinese, has ceased to be any noticeable structure capable of influencing the public life of the United States.
It is very rarely remembered that it was precisely the first Russophobic campaign that a hitherto inconspicuous person owes his rise to. — John Edgar Hoover. It was he, formerly a modest immigration official, who showed such zeal in the fight against the “red menace” that Palmer, in 1921, appointed him Deputy Director of the Bureau of Investigation. In 1924 Hoover became director of the Bureau. A in 1935 under pressure from Hoover, the US Congress legislated all of his initiatives. This is how the famous FBI appeared, whose agents since then constitute, as it were, a separate caste of people for whom general laws are not written. Roughly speaking, one of the most important state structures of the USA in its current form — child of the first Russophobic campaign. Obsessed with the idea of a “communist conspiracy,” Hoover was the director of this organization for 48 years.
As Sikorsky warned
Russian emigrants had something to fear. But in this time they were treated more subtly — the guys from Hoover department didn let down Russians. The plan of the highest elites of the United States assumed a different use of the Russian diaspora — it "was given to development" CIA. And "the gentlemen of Langley" several years shuffled options. First, they relied on political associations of emigrants — it was believed that after the military defeat of the USSR, they could form the backbone of a new puppet government, which would be carried out in the "liberated from"communism territories" American politics.
However, the unexpected happened. The Russians have proven the ability to & nbsp; self-organize. But not the way their curators assumed. Most of the Russians needed Great Russia. Independent and strong. About what the leaders of the diaspora and debated. Though it would be better if they didn't. CIA analysts immediately got their bearings. A single political center for emigration was created — Council for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia. His ideological platform was “nonpredecision”. That is, the absence of any plans for state building until "the peoples inhabiting Russia express their will". In & nbsp; perspective, this meant a complete vacuum of power, the natural collapse of the “big Russian bear”; into a hundred little bear cubs and deleting the united Russian state from reality and history.
When people talk about “American Russophobia”, this aspect is forgotten, focusing on anti-Russian posters and Russophobic rhetoric. Meanwhile, he warned about the danger of such a turn in 1950 Igor Sikorsky, an aircraft designer who has distanced himself from politics: "I realize the seriousness and danger of the situation if America turns the war against communism into a war against the Russian people and his historical statehood». The struggle “against communism” USA won in 1991 The USSR ordered to live long. However, Sikorsky's words seem to be coming true. For several years now, another Russophobic campaign has been going on in the USA. And there is no reason to believe that its goals are different from those stated 70 years ago.
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