Please watch this film, made in 1943, at the height of the Second World War.
I am uploading this film for purely educational, historical and cultural purposes
Introduction
People in the West, both Europe and the USA, have been raised with a distorted history of the Soviet Union. The purpose of this post is to show that, according to a highly placed and trusted advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Soviet Union was a crucial ally.
I am including the transcript of Ambassador Joseph E. Davies, his personal introduction to this film. The film is quite entertaining, however, it is based on the Ambassador’s actual experience in the Soviet Union. Here is the transcript of his introduction.
Watch the film and hopefully dispell the rampant and destructive anti Russian and anti Soviet attitudes you were taught— decades of disinformation that people have been fed since the end of WWII.
This is the transcript of the author’s introduction to the film:
“Mission to Moscow — Introduction
“When I was your ambassador in Russia, I little expected to write a mission to Moscow, much less to see it projected on screen. But when Germany attacked Russia, the Soviet Union became one of the nations fighting Hitler, and it was a desperate hour. If Hitler were to destroy the Red Armies and smash the Soviet Union, the three aggressor nations would dominate Europe, Asia, and Africa. The riches of these three continents and the enslaved labor of three quarters of the population of the world would be harnessed to conquer the rest of the earth. The Americas would be next—us.
“Unity among the forces fighting Hitler was vital. Nothing, as I saw it, was more important than that the fighting nations should understand and trust each other. There was so much prejudice and misunderstanding of the Soviet Union—of which I partly shared—that I felt it was my duty to tell the truth about the Soviet Union as I saw it, for such value as it might have.
If I were down there in the audience with you, there are certain things I would want to know about the man who is telling the story so that I could assess the reliability of his judgment and his bias or lack of bias. Those things about me you are entitled to know; I would want to know them if I were you. Well, they’re very simple. My people were pioneers. They came to New Orleans in a sailing ship. I was born in Wisconsin, educated in the public schools, graduated from the University of Wisconsin, and went to Washington as one of Woodrow Wilson’s young men.
My religious convictions are basic. My stated mother was an ordained minister of the gospel. I think that I am peculiarly the product of our great country and its free institutions and its opportunities in a competitive society of free enterprise. I came up the hard way, and I’m glad of it. I have a deep conviction and a firm faith that that system and our form of government are the best that the world has yet produced for the common man.
But while in Russia, I came to have a very high respect for the integrity and the honesty of the Soviet leaders. I respected the honesty of their convictions, and they respected mine. I also came back with a firm conviction that these people were sincerely devoted to world peace, and that they and their leaders only wanted to live in a decent world as good neighbors in a world of peace.
That peace has not yet been won. If unity, mutual understanding, and confidence in each other were necessary to win the war, it is still more necessary to win the peace. For there can be no durable peace without an agreement among those nations that have won the war that they will project that peace, maintain that peace, and protect that peace.
That is why I wrote Mission to Moscow. That is why I am deeply grateful to those fine patriotic citizens—the Warner Brothers—and to their great organization of dramatists, artists, and technicians who have projected this book upon the screen for you, my fellow citizens of the Americas, and for you, my fellow free men of the world. I thank you. Thank you.
Without Prejudice
For partisanship, I offer to my fellow Americans the facts as I saw them while United States Ambassador to the Soviet Union. No leaders of a nation have been so misrepresented and misunderstood as those in the Soviet government during those critical years between the two world wars. I hope that my book will help to correct that misunderstanding in presenting Russia and its people in their gallant struggle to preserve the peace until ruthless aggression made war inevitable.
The events of which I speak may be said to have begun on a historic day in June 1936. In the Palace of the League of Nations at Geneva, a little man of great dignity made a plea to the delegates of the 52 nations that were members of the League. It was His Majesty Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia. Ethiopia was but the first to fall before fascist barbarism. Who knows which country would be next?
In violation of the covenant, a certain government considered that the European situation made it imperative at any price to obtain the friendship of their Axis neighbors, Germany and Italy. The price paid was the abandonment of Ethiopia to the greed of the Italian government. If a strong government finds that it can with impunity destroy a weak people, then the hour is struck for that weak people to appeal to the League of Nations to give judgment in all freedom. God and history will remember your judgment.
Mr. Litvinov, first delegate of the Soviet Union, wished to address the assembly.
“Gentlemen, need I remind you, the League was formed for one great ideal—to protect the rights of all its member nations, both large and small. Mine is perhaps the largest, and we fear no aggressor. But we are here to uphold the principle of collective security for even the smallest nation. This ideal of maintaining a peaceful world through united strength is now being threatened seriously for the first time. The eyes of the world are upon us. Our decision and our actions now may decide the course of history for the next thousand years. Can you not understand that peace is indivisible? There is no security for any of us unless there is security for all. The League must live. It must be strong. The carrying into practice of these ideas will preserve us from new disappointments similar to those which we are now undergoing. We’ll infuse new life into the League and bring it abreast of the great task it has to perform.
That was the faith and lifelong work of the great man who created this assembly. The voice of the League’s founder was still, and the voice of his followers went unheeded. Soon a disillusioned world began to listen to another voice that proclaimed a new order to take the place of collective security—collective slavery under the domination of what he termed a master race. At first people laughed at this caricature of a man with his wild threats and grandiose plans, but words became deeds and the laughter ceased.”
My Comment:
I am amazed that the Soviet ambassador talked about the importance of collective security, even back then. And yet, when the Russian Federation asked to create such an architecture ever since the end of the USSR, up until the December 2021 draft treaty offered to NATO and the USA, both NATO and the USA rejected any negotiations! This, plus the US and EU sponsored coup against the democratically elected government in 2014 were, in essence, a declaration of war against Russia.
That is why this film is so important. It shows the historical context for the rampant Russophobia prevalent in the West.
