4

Archive.org contains a scan of an 84-page pamphlet, called "Our Red Army Ally" that purports to be a document published by the United States War Department in 1945, for the purposes of training American Soldiers how to deal with their USSR counterparts.

DA PAM 21-30 Our Red Army Ally 1945-04-23.

Scan of opening pages

The descriptions are so against stuff prevalent in mainstream Western press, movies and games today, that reading all this in English was quite a surreal experience for me.

Is the description of this document accurate? Is it an authentic pamphlet issued to US soldiers?

Community
  • 1
Oleg V. Volkov
  • 399
  • 1
  • 2
  • 10
  • 3
    Interesting reading from the same era are *[A Pocket Guide to France](https://archive.org/details/pocketguidetofra00unit)* and *[112 Gripes About the French](http://www.marshallfoundation.org/library/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/2014/05/112-gripes-about-the-french.pdf)*. The U.S. cultivated an identity as being separate from (and in various ways superior to) Europe, as well as a strongly isolationist ethic through most of its history till Pearl Harbor, so some education (propaganda) was needed to make Americans, in and out of uniform, more sympathetic to their own allies. – choster Feb 09 '19 at 00:09
  • Related question: https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/36087/were-many-ukrainian-and-polish-women-raped-by-soviet-soldiers-during-the-wwii – Andrew Grimm Feb 09 '19 at 00:34
  • 2
    Note: I made a rather substantial edit to focus this question. – Oddthinking Feb 09 '19 at 00:48
  • 3
    @Oddthinking, I've noticed. You've completely nuked that "out of mainstream" content so now it is much harder to see at a glance why it is very surprising compared to stuff that's going on news today without actually reading through all of it. Now can you please revert it back? – Oleg V. Volkov Feb 09 '19 at 02:27
  • @AndrewGrimm yeah, I commented on that one in past on how even wiki editors doubt that info that comes from just a single author. – Oleg V. Volkov Feb 09 '19 at 02:29
  • 4
    @OlegV.Volkov: I still think the new version is an improvement, despite your protests. (1) The old version got a close vote and a flag suggesting it was moved to History.SE. (2) Quoting more from the original, rather than your personal reading would be helpful. (3) I left your summary in which sufficiently explained why you were skeptical. (4) Ultimately, it appears to be based on your personal incredulity that propaganda about the USSR has changed so much, which is most easily understood because the USSR has changed from a US ally to an enemy to a group of frenemies over the years. – Oddthinking Feb 09 '19 at 07:27
  • An entry in archive.org by itself isn’t notable. If some notable source makes a big deal about it, then that may hit the notability criteria. – Andrew Grimm Feb 10 '19 at 12:10
  • It's important to remember that in April of 1945, when that pamphlet was reportedly published, the United States and the Soviet Union were both at war with Nazi Germany, and there was considerable concern about friendly-fire incidents as the two armies made contact. – Mark Feb 14 '19 at 01:23
  • While I agree that the previous version of the question better explains why the pamphlet might be considered surprising, that surprise is not really the subject of the question, so I think Oddthinking was right to trim it out. The question, put broadly, is "was US Army propoganda pro-Russia in 1945?" If you have any doubt about the pamphlet's status as deliberate propaganda, note phrases like "justifiable hatred of the Germans" in the section "Why He Fights"; this is not a pamphlet written with fairness and honesty in mind. – IMSoP Feb 17 '19 at 09:41

1 Answers1

6

The pamphlet in question appears to be real. The US war department published a number of propaganda pamphlets during the war. Here is a listing for a similar one on Amazon, and a scan of a different type of instructional pamphlet.

You can find this specific pamphlet from amazon third party sellers and on ebay. You can also find it in library catalogues. By all appearances this is a real document published by the US government during WWII. During WWII the United States and USSR had a common enemy, and this pamphlet was designed to help soldiers for the two sides get along should they meet.

BobTheAverage
  • 11,961
  • 6
  • 43
  • 54
  • 10
    I think it is fruitful to explain that the pamphlet was published in World War II, when the US and the USSR were allies, not during the Cold War, when they were enemies. This is probably the cause of the OP's perception of dissonance. – Oddthinking Feb 09 '19 at 00:48
  • @oddthinking I agree but I did not have the time to write a skeptics quality answer including that info at the time. – BobTheAverage Feb 09 '19 at 02:13
  • 2
    @oddthinking After a few minutes of fruitless googling, I am giving up on writing a comprehensive well sourced answer. The alliance between the soviets and the United States is a tricky one, and began to fall apart before the war even ended. – BobTheAverage Feb 09 '19 at 02:33
  • @Oddthinking my perception of dissonance comes on how it is diametrically opposite of "facts" promoted today and was detailed in 1) short description of said myth and 2) bullet list of parts of pamphlet that break that myth apart. You've removed both, making HARDER to understand why someone would doubt authenticity of such pamphlet. – Oleg V. Volkov Feb 09 '19 at 02:45
  • @bob Indeed. The Soviets didn't enter the war until Germany broke their alliance. Many viewed their entrance as a tit-for-tat, rather than the actions of an ally. General Patton openly criticized the Soviets before the war ended and even might have been considered hostile shortly after. It was an attitude likely not unique to him. "Tricky" is perhaps an understatement. –  Feb 09 '19 at 02:49
  • @Fredsbend Sounds like you are trying to answer in the comments. The original question was asked in part because the media and history books in the United States and Russia tell very different stories about WWII. I was careful in my answer to not go beyond what I had a good unbiased source for, and I think that might be a good rule for comment threads as well. – BobTheAverage Feb 09 '19 at 03:59
  • @bob I mean to illuminate that the history of these two nations' relationship is very complicated. Too complicated for an answer to get into. –  Feb 09 '19 at 04:19
  • If I wanted to expand this answer I would add a link to this https://www.rbth.com/history/328150-hollywood-made-pro-soviet-movies – Avery Feb 10 '19 at 15:38
  • 2
    Despite the reservations of US and UK leadership - the Russians were fighting the common enemy at the time, and as the Germans were collapsing under the combined onslaught, this pamphlet (and almost certainly others issued to the British, French, Russian, and other allied troops) would have been issued to prevent unfortunate misunderstandings when the Eastern and Western forces inevitably met: which they did on the 25th April (2 days after this pamphlet was apparently distributed). –  Feb 11 '19 at 00:11
  • @Avery The article you linked is from a newspaper wholly owned by the Russian government. It covers a lot of ground very quickly, and requires close reading and a good knowledge of history to understand how all of the pieces fit. I don't really trust this as a source, or to provide a good overview of the turn from pro to anti-soviet propaganda. – BobTheAverage Feb 11 '19 at 02:02
  • Sorry, I was writing quickly on mobile. I meant that it would be good to talk about the pro-Soviet films and their period reception, not that poorly written article in particular. – Avery Feb 11 '19 at 02:10