U.S. and Turkestan political exiles during the Cold War: information policy of radio liberty in Soviet Central Asia

What can be said about the effect of this Soviet practice? By the mid-1950s there were more than 2,000 jamming stations in operation. Almost every Soviet town with a population of more than 200,000 people had “a jamming center.” But in that period the whole population of Kyrgyzstan was about 1.9 million people; of Tajikistan, 1.8 million, of Turkmenistan, 1.4 million. Kazakhstan, along with Uzbekistan, had the largest populations: 8.5 million; and 7.3 million, respectively. We must also take into account that there were few intellectuals among the populations of these republics. Only minor parts of the population of Soviet Central Asia in the 1950s had the technical capacity to listen to Radio Liberty/Radio Liberation, because local people had no radios which could accept shortwave stations.

The U.S. spent much money on propaganda: for instance, in 1958 the budget of American international propaganda was about $100,000,000. For the Department of State, it was very important to estimate the real effect of this activity. RL regularly monitored its listeners; the results of this monitoring were analyzed by the special division of the Radio stations. In the early 1960s the radio management received information that the station was actively listened to in Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania, and other states. Individual responses were received from Kyrgyzstan.“W. Schramm to H. Sargeant,” in GUL. SC. Robert F. Kelley papers, box 5, folder 4. However, evidence that the “Liberty” stations were listened to in the other republics of Central Asia could not be found.

In the 1960s, and until the 1980s, the potential audience of RL grew. Under the Stalinist regime, only about 2 percent of the Soviet people had the technical capacity to listen to Western radio stations, but in the mid-1960s nearly two-thirds of the Soviet people could. In the 1970s the USSR had 35 million radios, about two-thirds of which were able to accept Western shortwave stations.

RL paid great attention to the study of its reception by the Soviet listeners. It is important to note that the management of the station knew the real situation and did not gloss over the fact that some Soviet people had negative attitudes towards RLs programs. For example, in 1965, R. Kelly wrote that over the past two or three years the proportion of Soviet people who believed that “Liberty” was a “free voice” had fallen from 44 to 37 percent. The number of those who defined RL as “the American station” greatly increased (from 4 percent to 18 percent).“R. Kelley to H. Sargeant,” in GUL. SC. Robert F. Kelley papers, box 5, folder 3.

Was the Turkestan service at RL aware of these processes? It is important to note that the work of the Central Asian services was hampered by the inability to hear the voice of its listeners. In this situation it was difficult to understand the correct direction in which the radio station could develop. It has been impossible, so far, to find any information to prove that people in Central Asia really listened to RL in the 1970s. At that time, though, “listening” information regularly came from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Estonia and some other Soviet republics.

In these circumstances, the managers of RL had to make use of any piece of information which showed that their activity somehow affected the region. For example, in 1984 “Liberty” managers actively discussed articles against the radio programs in Turkmen language which were published in the Soviet newspapers “Sovetsky Turkmenistan [Soviet Turkmenistan]” and “Turkmenskaia Zvezda [Turkmen Spark]”. The author of these articles was Seytniyaz Atayev, a well-known writer of Soviet Turkmenistan, pointed out that Murat Tachmyrat (Editor-in-Chief of the Turkmen service at RL from 1978 to 1985) collaborated with the Nazis during World War II. One of the leading managers of “Liberty,” W. Buell, even sent a special letter to the Board of Radio Directors on this subject; these publications were referred to as “a series of articles,” “an attack,” which was organized by the ideological apparatus of the USSR. Such materials are regarded as evidence that RL had “a significant audience of listeners in Soviet Central Asia.”“W. Buell to the Board of Directors,” in GUL. SC. The Jon Lodeesen papers, box 2, folder 32. “Liberty” managers wanted to believe in the picture which they themselves created. At that time the regional Soviet press really began to pay more attention to the “Muslim question,” especially to the actions of illegal Islamic activists. Whether it had anything to do with the activity of RL is difficult to answer.

At the beginning of the 1980s the Department of State tried to develop the structure of an American propaganda apparatus. During the Reagan era the `Voice of America', for example, spent more than $23,000,000 on advanced engineering and technical development studies. Alan Snyder noted that “a new facility was slotted to be built in Sri Lanka to beam programs into Soviet Central Asia,”See Alan Snyder, Warriors of Disinformation, 36. Some experts were not sure whether Sri Lanka was the safest location for such an expensive station because of its internal instability. But an agreement was signed and the “Voice of America” had to pay $500,000 to Sri Lanka for “the relocation of squatters and for the coconut industry development.” There was also a project to build a new station in Israel for broadcasting programs to Soviet Central Asia. So, it can be said that the US Department of State put great effort into American propaganda in Central Asia. But there was no feedback from listeners.

Conclusions

By the end of the Cold War, the total number of staff of different American institutions who took part in propaganda activity was more than 10,000. They worked in 150 countries and broadcast programs in 70 languages for 2,500 hours per week. But was this activity really effective?

In this paper the author has tried to show that very often American management could not control the activities of its Turkestan service. From the beginning of 1950s there were very few American specialists on Central Asia. The founders of RL were specialists on Russian problems; usually they had never been in towns and villages of Uzbekistan or Kyrgyzstan. Really, there was no serious base for the formation of Turkestan service of RL in 1950s. But political factor played a main role in this question.

One of the most important problems was to select qualified personnel who spoke the languages of the peoples of the region and who were able to engage in high-level analysis of the political and religious processes in Central Asia. Even employees of RL born in Central Asia and thereafter living in the West were cut off from the actual situation in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and other nearby Soviet republics. They knew about life before World War II but the post-war period for these republics was a time of massive structural changes.

For many years, the American management of RL acquiesced with experts from Central Asia who shared Chokay's ideas. United independent Turkestan was a phenomenon which existed only as an “idealized version” of RL. But the human inhabitants of this territory did not understand it. Only in the 1970s did the American management begin to realize that it was necessary to speak about liberation from Communism in the context of specific republics.

It has been important to estimate the specificity of the political culture of the Central Asian peoples. Political activism was not a mass phenomenon in this culture. Opposition sentiment usually did not manifest itself in Soviet Central Asia in the form of a political struggle against the Communist regime. It is necessary to remember that there was a small group of intellectuals among population of Central Asia. The potential base for anti-communist propaganda in this region was narrow.

The main experts of Turkestan RL service collaborated with the Nazis during World War II. Soviet propagandists used this situation to struggle against RL. The majority of Soviet intellectuals, even opponents to the Communist regime, did not want to support any of Hitler's former collaborators.

Quickly, American founders began to understand that their partners from Central Asia did not want to compromise with Russian anti-communists. For American management, RL was an ideal image of future united (but liberal-oriented) Russia on the basis of Soviet Union. But anti-communists from Central Asia were the principal opponents to this idea. They supported a slogan of full independence of their states. Already in 1950s it was possible to see the future break of Soviet Union.

The jamming of RL programs by the Soviet authorities was also a serious obstacle to the activity of this station. Often there was no technical ability to listen RL programs in Central Asia. As a result, even intellectuals in Central Asia who wanted to listen to these programs had no such opportunity.

The Turkestan service also suffered from lack of feedback, a serious predicament. Documents showed that for RL it was very difficult to hear any voices from Soviet Central Asia. Other services had an opportunity to receive information from Soviet listeners, thus giving feedback about their perception of RL programs. The author has not found any documents about such practice in the Turkestan service. As a result, the efficacy of the Turkestan service may not have been so great. Certainly, it is necessary to continue a study of questions which were raised by this article. Future scholars will need to work with documents from archives of Soviet and American security services. It is also necessary to study archival documents from Central Asia, although it is difficult for foreign scholars to access these archives. These documents will give scholars new data about the real effectiveness of RL activity in Central Asia.

References

1. Amirov, Taukel. Krah legiona. Alma-Ata: Kazahstan Publ., 1970 (in Russian).

2. Anderson, John. Religion, State and Politics in the Soviet Union and Successor States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

3. Bennigsen, A. ed. Soviet Strategy and Islam. NY: St. Martin's Press, 1989.

4. Cull, Nicholas. The Cold War and the United States Information Agency: American Propaganda and Public Diplomacy, 1945-1989. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

5. Daniels, Robert. Russia: The Roots of Confrontation. Cambridge; London: Harvard University Press, 1985.

6. Goldman Philipp, Lapidus Gail and Zaslavsky, Victor. “Soviet Federalism - its Origins, Evolution and Demise.” In From Union to Commonwealth. Nationalism and Separatism in the Soviet Republic. Cambridge University Press, 1993.

7. Guerrero, Javier Gil. “Propaganda Broadcasts and Cold War Politics: The Carter Administration's Outreach to Islam.” Journal of Cold War Studies 19, no. 1 (2017): 4-37.

8. Kalinovsky, Artemy, “Encouraging Resistance: Paul Henze, the Bennigsen School and the Crisis of Detente.” In Kemper, Michael, and Kalinovsky, Artemy, eds. Reassessing Orientalism: Interlocking Orientologies during the Cold War, 211-232. Routledge Studies in the History of Russia and Eastern Europe, 2015.

9. Kemper, Michael, Motika, Raoul, and Reichmuth, Stefan, eds. Islamic Education in the Soviet Union and Its Successor States. London; New York: Routledge, 2010.

10. Khalid, Adeeb. Islam after Communism: Religion and Politics in Central Asia. Berkeley; Los Angeles; London: Univ. of California Press, 2007.

11. Kind-Kovacs, Friederike. “Voices, Letters and Literature through the Iron Curtain: exiles and the (trans)mission of radio in the Cold War.” Cold War History, 13, no. 2 (2013): 193-219.

12. Martin, John L. International Propaganda: Its Legal and Diplomatic Control. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1958.

13. Mikkonen, Simo. “Exploiting the Exiles: Soviet Emigres in U.S. Cold War Strategy.” Journal of Cold War Studies 14, no. 2 (2012): 98-127.

14. Muminov, Ashirbek. “Fundamentalist Challenges to Local Islamic Tradition in Soviet and Post-Soviet Central Asia.” In Uyama Tomohiko, ed. Empire, Islam and Politics in Central Eurasia, 249-262. Sapporo: Slavic research center, Hokkaido University, 2007.

15. Neizvestny, Ernest. GovoritNeizvestny. Perm: Permskie Novosti Publ., 1991.

16. Olcott, Marta Brill. “Central Asia: The Reformers Challenge a Traditional Society.” The Nationalities Factor in Soviet Politics and Society. Boulder; Oxford: Westview Press, 1990.

17. Olcott, Marta Brill. “Soviet Central Asia: Ethnic Dilemmas and Strategies.” In Malik, H. et al., eds. Domestic Determinants of Soviet Foreign Policy towards South Asia and the Middle East. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1990.

18. Risso, Linda. “Radio Wars: Broadcasting in the Cold War.” Cold War History 13, no. 2 (2013): 145-152.

19. Ro'i, Yaacov. Islam in the Soviet Union: From the Second World War to Gorbachev. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000.

20. Sadykova, Bakhyt. Turkestansky legion

21. Schlyter, Birgit N., ed. Prospects for Democracy in Central Asia. Istanbul: Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul, 2005.

22. Shakibaev, Serik. Padenie `Bolshogo Turkestana'. Alma-Ata: Jazushi Publ., 1972.

23. Snyder, Alan. Warriors of Disinformation: American Propaganda, Soviet Lies and The Winning of the Cold War. New York: Arcade, 1995.

24. Suny, Ronald. “State, Civil Society and Ethnic Cultural Consolidation in the USSR - Roots of the National Question.” In From Union to Commonwealth. Nationalism and Separatism in the Soviet Republics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Размещено на allbest.ru