University of Dallas News

Issue date: 10/27/09 Section: Commentary

Roosevelt commissioned the film "Mission to Moscow," originally released in 1943, in an attempt to educate and enlighten the American people about Soviet leader Josef Stalin.

It is difficult and uncommon to find some piece of media, some exposition, which is particularly damning for one person or group. Kanye West's drunken belligerence has not curtailed his record sales any more than David Letterman's well-publicized affairs have brought him bad publicity. There are some few outbursts of the entertainment industry, be they songs or movies, which can define generations, encompass cultural movements, or capture a particular mentality with inimitable effectiveness.

Warner Bros.' "Mission to Moscow," first released in 1943, is one such film, and one whose re-release last Tuesday is as appropriate and unsurprising now as it was 65 years ago. This blatant, calibrated piece of Soviet and communist propaganda was requested directly by President Franklin Roosevelt and is, as a critic put it at the time, a $2 million love letter to Josef Stalin.

According to Cass Warner, film historian and granddaughter of Harry Warner, "President Roosevelt himself asked Harry and Jack Warner to assist in educating, entertaining and enlightening the American people." Directed by Michael Curtiz of "Casablanca," the controversial film marked a turning point in Hollywood's perception of the Soviet Union-at the time an ambiguous and distrusted ally-towards a curious and praise-worthy alternative to America.

The script was loosely based on the memoirs of Joseph E. Davies, ambassador to Moscow in the late 1930s, and at one point features Davies' character lauding Stalin: "Mr. Stalin, history will remember you as a great leader." The film insists that Stalin recognized the Nazi threat long before the West and only allied with Hitler to buy himself and the West-his real friends-some time. He was then obligated to invade Finland, as this mission to Moscow reveals, to protect it from the Nazis (don't tell the Finns or, for that matter, mention it to the rest of Europe lest they become envious). The film insists that Stalin's subsequent purges were mere conjurations of a vast Nazi conspiracy.

FDR's Office of War Information praised the movie and its rendition of Stalin, saying it portrayed that "the leaders of both countries desire peace and both possess a blunt honesty of address and purpose." Upon its release, "Mission to Moscow" came under heavy criticism, and the Warner Bros. were brought to trial before Congress in 1950 amid growing concerns over Hollywood infiltration. After asserting screenwriter Howard Koch was the true sympathizer, the brothers were released and Koch then blacklisted.

The recent release of "Mission to Moscow" is an inadvertent reminder that the situation has not changed as drastically as many hope. Russia is still a belligerent power, ready and willing to exercise military force, as is China, and while both countries have launched multiple operations in the past three years, they are being greeted with mild affection and flimsy diplomacy.

Though FDR was proven wrong and Stalin has been identified as one of the greatest mass murderers in history, the current administration is offering Russian operatives open tours of U.S. nuclear silos. It is fair to say that, while Soviet Russia never released pro-American or pro-capitalist propaganda, FDR's ghost is contentedly watching a re-implementation of his dead-end economic policies and witnessing the mission to Moscow becoming a submission to Moscow.

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