The Big Lie (1951)

Genre

propaganda film

Country

United States

How it feels

This film was made by the U.S. Army to argue that the Soviet Union was as dangerous as Nazi Germany. It uses a side-by-side comparison of the two regimes, showing similar events like forced labor and political shows. The goal is to convince viewers that communism and fascism are essentially the same threat.

propagandisticdocumentary-stylecomparativepatrioticdidacticarchival-footage-heavymanipulative

What happens

The Big Lie is a 1951 anti-communist propaganda film produced by the US Army. It aimed to portray the Soviet Union as an aggressive totalitarian empire much like the recently-defeated Nazi Germany, and indeed begins with a quote by Adolf Hitler: "The great masses will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one". The film links the communist and Nazi ideologies by showing scenes of forced labor, sham elections, kangaroo courts and parades held by the armed forces or by regime-controlled youth organizations: in each case a swastika-shaped wipe introduces an example from Nazi Germany, followed by a hammer-and-sickle-shaped wipe to introduce an equivalent example from the Soviet Union. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

• Face to Face with Communism (1951)
• Triumph Over Violence (1965)
• The Hoaxters (1952)
• The Unforgettable Year 1919 (1951)
• The Nazis Strike (1943)
• Here Is Germany (1945)
• I Was a Communist for the FBI (1951)
• Divide and Conquer (1943)