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by emgoldstein 3786 days ago
Ah, but that was 1946. The (American) party line had changed -- most American liberals were anti-Stalinist in 1946.

A quick google search turns up this from 1943:

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/11332745

"Dorothy Thompson, the well-known columnist, writes: 'Russia does not want to make an isolationist policy. Russia wants a friendly Europe in a friendly world, with a system of collective security. There are signs of such hostility in both Europe and America to Russia that it gives Russian leadership some reason for suspicion. As things look at present, it is by no means certain that defeat of Germany will assure a non-Fascist Europe or one prepared to adopt a good-neighbor policy toward Russia."

Her views in 1946 are standard 1946 post-FDR New Dealism (after the Anglo-Soviet split); her views in 1943 are standard 1943 New Dealism. You're just hearing the party line; God only knows what she actually thought, and when.

It would be much easier to fight the memory hole if we didn't have these ridiculous copyright laws, but a lot of original WWII propaganda (not cherry-picked by modern hagiographers) remains on line. It's often pretty appalling reading.

1 comments

That's extremely thin gruel. You seem to want to paint any whiff of Russia/Soviet sympathy as the equivalent of 'Stalin apologist' and reaching even further, an equivalent to being a Nazi sympathizer. I don't think that's a view that can easily be factually rather than ideologically supported.