Documentary News Letter (1940)

DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER JULY 1940 period of the short war which he planned. But his pre-war propaganda did not stop there. He sought also to strike at the morale of his chosen enemies in advance of the outbreak of hostilities. He sought to utilise the domestic discontents of the democratic powers to undermine national unity and purpose. Today some Allied statesmen affect to be amazed at the omnipresence and power of the Fifth Column. Their amazement is a measure only of their own gullibility and blindness, for Hitler has made no secret of his propaganda methods, and no country which is now the victim of them has not been warned of their danger by its more enlightened and more honest citizens. Yet Nazi success in the propaganda war is due less to the Nazi propaganda offensive in Allied and neutral countries and to Fifth Column plots than it is to the deficiencies of the democracies' own propaganda. The democracies have attempted no counter-offensive and, in fact, scarcely have defended themselves. There has been no co-ordinated plan to rival Nazi propaganda in neutral countries by presenting the achievements and future prospects of the democratic ideology. At home, democracy has not been interpreted as an instrument of social construction. The citizens of democratic communities have been asked to assume that the system under which they live, a system with obvious present defects, is worthy of the utmost sacrifice. There has been no rallying call to democracy as a means to social advance, no attempt to tell the world that democracy was fighting not merely to defend, but to build. It may be argued that it is now too late to inaugurate a plan of long-term democratic propaganda, that our public information and propaganda services must now devote all their energies to the immediate needs of a desperate national fight for life. Yet a nation fighting desperately to defend the present, lacks the inspiration which springs from a vision of the future. Now, more than ever, it is necessary to repair past errors and fortify national morale with an articulation of democratic citizenship as a constructive force which can mould the future. Under the threat of the blitzkrieg there is danger that the film may be regarded, because of the complexity of its production and distribution, as too difficult and too slow a channel of public communication. Yet for instruction in many of the details of home defence, for the distribution of certain information and as a mirror in which democracy may contemplate and be inspired by its own epic struggle, the film has no rival, indeed no substitute. In spite of the present example of the Ministry of Information, films can be made quickly and under emergency conditions. They can be shown widely under emergency conditions. Films can still be made and used however serious the disorganisation of national life may become — if the Ministry of Information chooses to make and use them. It is not too late to turn to account the final advantage which democracy holds over fascism, an advantage which in itself is sufficient to give us victory. Fascism must set the presentation of its ideological case to the world against a background of ignorance and suppression of fact : democracy can call in to its support all the powers of the free mind, free to select and interpret to the world the sum of human knowledge and experience. And at this moment to present to ourselves and to the world 5pO Oil 'I it:c the mind and face of a free people is no academic indulgence it is not even remote from the agonising daily problems of th( Allied peoples. To show in factual detail these problems, anc their practical solution by communal effort, is to revea democracy still at work. And to show democracy at work is tc reap the moral advantage of taking, at long last, the offensive in the war of propaganda. To emphasise the constructiv< aspects of democratic citizenship, even in defence against i blitzkrieg, is to look forward to the world beyond war: it is t( regard democratic citizenship as an instrument, not only o national defence but as an instrument of international con struction. It sets against the fascist denial of individual re sponsibility, the creative responsibility of the democratic citizen In our policy of public information by press, radio and filn we can inform every account of fact, every appeal, ever instruction, with the explicit affirmation of the creative re sponsibility of the democratic citizen. It has long been abundantly clear that our use of films in thi: totalitarian war must be comprehensive and highly organised i it is not to be worse than useless. Neither Treasury inhibition nor petty vanities must be allowed to stand in the way of il{,| medium whose powers for the present purpose cannot for ;, moment be denied. There are indications already that tbi Films Division has awoken to the need of short weekly itemS' to go to all cinemas, on a basis of information, instruction, o morale purposes. But there are no indications so far that th Films Division realises the many other fields which need to b, exploited with just as much urgency and just as much punch The Division has in its possession plans which cover ever field of propaganda effort, from long-term prestige films rigb down to the day by day recording of the war. But throug slowness and inefficiency it is stultifying even its own hali hearted efforts to meet the varied needs of propaganda an^ morale. What about films for the Dominions? for the Colonies for non-belligerents, particularly in the New World? Wha about technical films for the Services? What about the educa tion and instruction of the youth of the nation in oUj greatest crisis? What about counter-propaganda? What abouj u the daily problems of the housewife and the allotment holdei ^ What about the need to resolve quickly and simply the puzzle ment and doubts which the great and crowding events of ever week must bring even to the most balanced and serene us? The answer is, we are afraid, too familiar. Plans are eithe "under consideration" ; or a few films have been put int production in a scattered and speculative manner — a few filaj which bureaucratic delays and inefficiency will hold-up for s long that they will have lost most of their point by the tiff they reach the screen. The answer, in fact, is that the authoriti«i have not learnt how to act either quickly or decisively — li| alone how to reorientate propaganda necessities within tl framework of a permanent plan. Heaven knows we have message. Is it too much, after ten months of fooling, to a the Films Division bo find a method of presenting it? It has been claimed that the Films Division is stultified \ lack of co-operation on the part of the film trade or by peti jealousies in Wardour Street. Even if that were true once, it certainly not true now. Not only are compulsory powers avi k !tl