Propaganda and Persuasion: The Cold War and the Canadian-Soviet Friendship Society by Jennifer Anderson (review)

A little over 10 years ago I had the pleasure of attending a presentation by (now) Dr. Jennifer Anderson on the subject of her book, and was transfixed by her story of a reunion of modern-day Stalinophiles who sternly told her, "You have a duty to tell the truth about us." This interaction serves as the introduction to Dr. Anderson's compelling investigation into the Canada Soviet Friendship Society (csfs), a national organization dedicated to informing Canadians about the Soviet Union and Soviet perspectives on the world. Within the volume, she successfully explores the interactions between truth, fiction, personalities, left politics, and foreign policy during Canada's Cold War.

The author's signature accomplishment is to present, with clarity and sympathy, the full complexity of the csfs, which was undisputedly a Communist-led front for Soviet propagandists in Canada. Another scholar could have spent the majority of the book discussing the overt and covert connections between the csfs leadership and their Soviet handlers. Anderson moves the investigation in a different direction—what accounts for the longevity and relative popularity of the csfs, who were its audiences, and how and why were they so receptive to the organization's (and by extension the USSR's) message?

Though financed in part by Soviet money (delivered in suitcases by Soviet embassy officials), over the years a wide cross-section of the public had some exposure to csfs activities. Either by attending lectures and film screenings or through subscriptions to popular newsletters, left-leaning Canadians were afforded an opportunity to encounter an alternative, progressive perspective to the dominant Cold War discourse. The csfs, with its relentlessly positive message about life in the USSR and the promise of socialism, provided "a shorthand for political and social group identity. For Soviet sympathizers and fellow travellers, being part of a larger community was also comforting since mainstream Canadian public opinion would have been critical of their views and activism" (99).

The csfs was meant to form a bridge between the close-knit and overlapping progressive groups on the left and wider public opinion, using its connections to Moscow to arrange highly-managed visits of Canadian delegations to examine life in the USSR. Delegates could then return and host lectures and publish what they found during what Anderson describes as "Potemkin village" tours. The csfs acted very much like a herald of Soviet cultural diplomacy, profiling art, culture, and scientific advances. By couching the discussion in terms of "friendship," the csfs avoided the more overt political messages used by the Communist Party of Canada or the Labour Progressive Party of Canada that were less successful in attracting mainstream attention.

Anderson documents the heights of the csfs's fortunes, during which progressives were afforded an opportunity to work in the open to shape perceptions of the USSR. But the party ended with revelations of Soviet espionage and "friendship with the Soviets lost any claim to political neutrality" (45). Prominent Canadians dropped their support, and membership dwindled.

Anderson charts these successes and reversals deftly using newspaper coverage as well as rcmp reports. But Anderson's book also acts as something of a biography of one of the csfs's most influential leaders, Dyson Carter, who rose to a position of authority during the lean post-war years and used his substantial skills as an author and speaker to try to sway Canadians to the Soviet perspective. His magazine, Northern Neighbours, was reported (by Carter) to have as many as 10,000 subscribers, and its readership reached deep into different communities. Through Carter's documents held at the Library and Archives of Canada, we see how a true believer approached the difficult task of promoting Soviet views in a hostile political landscape. Propaganda and Persuasion is a quick read at 181 pages, and it is a testament to Anderson's work that historians of the Cold War, foreign policy...