Читать книгу The History of Psychological Warfare - Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger - Страница 9

A more successful application of psychological warfare is recorded in the writings of Herodotus, the Greek historian:

Themistocles, having selected the best sailing ships of the Athenians, went to the place where there was water fit for drinking, and engraved upon the stones inscriptions, which the Ionians, upon arriving the next day at Artemisium, read. The inscriptions were to this effect, 'Men of Ionia, you do wrong in fighting against your fathers and helping to enslave Greece. Rather, therefore, come over to us or if you cannot do that, withdraw your forces from the contest and entreat the Carians to do the same. But if neither of these things is possible, and you are bound by too strong a necessity, yet in action, when we are engaged, behave ill on purpose, remembering that you are descended from us and that the enmity of the barbarians against us originally sprang from you.'4

This text is very much like leaflets dropped during World War II on reluctant enemies, such as the Italians, the Chinese puppet troops, and others. (Compare this Greek text with Figure 5.) Note that the propagandist tries to see things from the viewpoint of his audience. His air of reasonable concern for their welfare creates a bond of sympathy. And by suggesting that the Ionians should behave badly in combat, he lays the beginning of another line—the propaganda to the Persians, "black" propaganda making the Persians think that any Ionian who was less than perfect was a secret Athenian sympathizer. The appeal is sound by all modern standards of the combat-leaflet.

Another type of early military propaganda was the political denunciation which, issued at the beginning of war, could be cited from then on as legal and ethical justification for one side or the other. In the Chinese San Kuo novel, which has probably been read by more human beings than any other work of fiction, there is preserved the alleged text of the proclamation of a group of loyalist pro-Han rebels on the eve of military operations (about A.D. 200). The text is interesting because it combines the following techniques, all of them sound: 1) naming the specific enemy; 2) appeal to the "better people"; 3) sympathy for the common people; 4) claim of support for the legitimate government; 5) affirmation of one's own strength and high morale; 6) invocation of unity; 7) appeal to religion. The issuance of the proclamation was connected with rather elaborate formal ceremony:

The House of Han has fallen upon evil days, the bonds of Imperial authority are loosened. The rebel minister, Tung Cho, takes advantage of the discord to work evil, and calamity falls upon honorable families. Cruelty overwhelms simple folk. We, Shao and his confederates, fearing for the safety of the imperial prerogatives, have assembled military forces to rescue the State. We now pledge ourselves to exert our whole strength, and to act in concord to the utmost limit of our powers. There must be no disconcerted or selfish action. Should any depart from this pledge may he lose his life and leave no posterity. Almighty Heaven and Universal Mother Earth and the enlightened spirits of our forefathers, be ye our witnesses.5

Any history of any country will yield further examples of this kind of material. Whenever it was consciously used as an adjunct to military operations, it may appropriately be termed military propaganda.

Figure 5: Revolutionary Propaganda. When revolution favors one side or the other in war, revolutionary propaganda becomes an instrument which is used by one constituted government against another. This leaflet was issued by the Azad Hind Fauj (Free India Army) of the Japanese puppet Subhas Chandra Bose. (Singapore, then called Shonan, 1943 and 1944.) The leaflet avoids direct reference to the Japanese, and is therefore "block" propaganda. Its theme is simple: the British are alleged to eat while the Hindus starve. At the time, this argument had some plausibility. There was famine in Bengal, but no white men were found among the thousands of emaciated dead.