"captain!" wrote in message .ca...

human nature I guess... I just finished reading very fresh book
on battle of Kursk with first published german and soviet
official military reports before, during and after
that final german disaster in east front. Very funny reading.
Imagine soviet reports were much much more closer to the reality.
while according to german reports all these disasters after
disaters were just fine well planed operations with excellent
output. The book includes also Soviet and German newspaper
papers published in that time on that matters. German
materials were just nothing more than **** propaganda. Although
soviet press publications also included highly overestimated
numbers for German losses but generally the picture of
the events was pretty close to real one as we know it now.
So it seems there are problems with Stalin standard legend of
****ty propaganda.

are you saying that there was ****ty propaganda about stalin or that stalin
had problems with (writing) ****ty propaganda?


Difficult to say... Although there is little doubt that in
Stalin times soviet press often lied and generaly was used
for propaganda. Where it was (and is) not? But clearly the
picture was more complex than that simplistic views. Stalin
is known to severely purnish those who lied to him. As result of
that intentional lie in a official reports in his times
was very rare. particularly war time reports of Red Army
general stuff are considered to be the most complete and
reliable source of data for WWII in east front by many
serious reserachers including also western historians.
David Glantz for instance noted that very clearly. As for press
it lied if there was a good purpose and a direct order but
simulteniously if there were no good reason and durect
order to lie it could also be quite trueful. So as usual
one have to look in details and from different prespectives
and sources to find out what was the true. For insance
I would like that modern russian press provide the same
quality of materials about Chechenya war as it was done
by "Red Star" newspaper in 1943 about battle of Kursk.
So it is simple lie to say that soviet press lied all the
time on all matters.

Michael



Michael