Note 26 — CHAPTER 6 Psychological Warfare in World War II

People's Commissariat of Justice of the U.S.S.R., Report of Court Proceedings in the Case of the Anti-Soviet Trotzkyite Centre ..., Verbatim Report, Moscow, 1937, page 111. These trials were themselves propaganda; in this particular instance, propaganda of a rather poor order, since they failed to convince the foreign public and presumably persuaded only those portions of the Russian public who were so gullible that they needed no further persuading. For a brilliant illumination of them in terms of a readable novel, see Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon, New York, 1941; the same author also has a book of essays on the totalitarian mentality under the rather fancy title, The Yogi and the Commissar, New York, 1945. On the same subject, see Louis Fischer's Men and Politics, New York, 1942.