ant in this battle for the free expression of ideas: he is the stake. What matters for him is which voice he will be permitted to hear and which words will have the power to obsess him. . . .

It is in the light of this perfect analysis that one must ask oneself what freedom of expression still means in a democracy.

But even if the State held all the instruments of propaganda (and this becomes increasingly probable for political, economic, and financial reasons-particularly so far as TV3 is concerned), what characterizes democracy is that it permits the expression of different propagandas. This is true. But it is impossible to permit the expression of all opinion. Immoral and aberrant opinions are justifiably subject to censorship. Purely personal opinions and, even more, certain political tendencies are necessarily excluded. "No freedom for the enemies of freedom" is the watchword then. Thus the democracies create for themselves a problem of limitation and degree. Who then will exclude certain propaganda instruments? For the Fascist, the Communists are the enemies of truth. For the Communists, the enemies of freedom are the bourgeois, the Fascists, the cosmopolitans. And for the democrats? Obviously all enemies of democracy.

Matters are even more serious. In time of war, everybody agrees that news must be limited and controlled, and that all propaganda not in the national interest must be prohibited. From that fact grows a unified propaganda. The problem that now arises is this: We have talked of the Cold War. But it seems that the democracies have not yet learned that the Cold War is no longer an exceptional state, a state analogous to hot war (which is transitory), but is becoming a permanent and endemic state.

There are many reasons for that. I will name only one: propaganda itself.

Propaganda directed to territories outside one's borders is a weapon of war. This does not depend on the will of those who use it or on a doctrine, but is a result of the medium itself. Propaganda has such an ability to effect psychological transformations and such an impact on the very core of man that it inevitably has military force when used by a government and directed to the outside. There is no "simple" use of propaganda; a propaganda conflict is hardly less serious than an armed conflict. It is inevitable, therefore, that in cold war the same attitude exists as in the case of hot war: one feels the need to unify propaganda. Here democracies are caught in a vicious circle from which they seem unable to escape. The other principal aspect of democratic propaganda is that it is subject to certain values. It is not unfettered but fettered; it is an instrument not of passion but of reason. Therefore, democratic propaganda must be essentially truthful. It must speak only the truth and base itself only on facts. This can be observed in American propaganda: it is undeniable that American information and propaganda are truthful. But that does not seem to me characteristic of democracy. The formula with which Ameri

cans explain their attitude is: "The truth pays." That is, propaganda based on truth is more effective than any other. Besides, Hitler's famous statement on the lie is not a typical trait of propaganda. There is an unmistakable evolution here: lies and falsifications are used less and less. We have already said that. The use of precise facts is becoming increasingly common.

Conversely, the use of nuances and a certain suppleness reveals an attitude peculiar to democracy. At bottom there is a certain respect for the human being, unconscious perhaps, and becoming steadily weaker, but nevertheless still there; even the most Machiavellian of democrats respects the conscience of his listener and does not treat him with haste or contempt. The tradition of respecting the individual has not yet been eliminated, and this leads to all sorts of consequences. First, it limits propaganda. The democratic State uses propaganda only if driven by circumstances for example, traditionally, after wars. But whereas private and domestic propaganda is persistent in its effects, governmental and external propaganda evaporate easily. Besides, such propaganda is not total, does not seek to envelop all of human life, to control every form of behavior, to attach itself ultimately to one's person. A third trait of democratic propaganda is that it looks at both sides of the coin. The democratic attitude is frequently close to that of a university: there is no absolute truth, and it is acknowledged that the opponent has some good faith, some justice, some reason on his side. It is a question of nuances. There is no strict rule-except in time of war-about Good on one side and Bad on the other.

Finally, the democratic propagandist or democratic State will often have a bad conscience about using propaganda. The old democratic conscience still gets in the way and burdens him; he has the vague feeling that he is engaged in something illegitimate. Thus, for the propagandist in a democracy to throw himself fully into his task it is necessary that he believe-i.e., that he formulate his own convictions when he makes propaganda.

Lasswell has named still another difference between democratic and totalitarian propaganda, pertaining to the technique of propaganda itself, and distinguishing between "contrasted incitement" and "positive incitement." The first consists of a stimulus unleashed by the experimenter or the authorities in order to produce in the masses an effect in which those in power do not participate. This, according to Lasswell, is the customary method of despotism. Conversely, the positive incitement, symbolizing the extended brotherly hand, is a stimulus that springs from what the powers that be really feel, in which they want to make the masses participate. It is a communal action. This analysis is roughly accurate.

All this represents the situation in which democracies find themselves in the face of propaganda, and indicates the differences between democratic and authoritarian propaganda methods. But I must now render a very serious judgment on such activity (democratic propaganda): all that

I have described adds up to ineffectual propaganda. Precisely to the extent that the propagandist retains his respect for the individual, he denies himself the very penetration that is the ultimate aim of all propaganda: that of provoking action without prior thought. By respecting nuances, he neglects the major law of propaganda: every assertion must be trenchant and total. To the extent that he remains partial, he fails to use the mystique. But that mystique is indispensable for well-made propaganda. To the extent that a democratic propagandist has a bad conscience, he cannot do good work; nor can he when he believes in his own propaganda. As concerns Lasswell's distinction, the technique of propaganda demands one form or the other, depending on circumstances. In any event, propaganda always creates a schism between the government and the mass, that same schism I have described in the book The Technological Society, and that is provoked by all the techniques, whose practitioners constitute a sort of aristocracy of technicians and who modify the structures of the State.

According to Lasswell's analysis, propaganda based on contrasted incitation expresses a despotism. I would rather say that it expresses an aristocracy. But the famous "massive democracy" corresponds to that, is that. Ultimately, even if one tries to maintain confidence and communion between the government and the governed, all propaganda ends up as a means by which the prevailing powers manipulate the masses.

The true propagandist must be as cold, lucid, and rigorous as a surgeon. There are subjects and objects. A propagandist who believes in what he says and lets himself become a victim of his own game will have the same weakness as a surgeon who operates on a loved one or a judge who presides at a trial of a member of his own family. To use the instrument of propaganda nowadays, one must have a scientific approach-the lack of which was the weakness that became apparent in Nazi propaganda in its last few years: clearly, after 1943, one could see from its content that Goebbels had begun to believe it himself.

Thus, some of democracy's fundamental aspects paralyze the conduct of propaganda. There is, therefore, no "democratic" propaganda. Propaganda made by the democracies is ineffective, paralyzed, mediocre. We can say the same when there is a diversity of propagandas: when various propagandas are permitted to express themselves they become ineffective with respect to their immediate objective. This ineffectiveness with regard to the citizens of a democracy needs more analysis. Let us merely emphasize here that our propaganda is outclassed by that of totalitarian States. This means that ours does not do its job. But in view of the challenge we face, it is imperative that ours be effective. One must therefore abandon the traits that are characteristic of democracy but paralyzing for propaganda: the combination of effective propaganda and respect for the individual seems impossible.

There is a last element, which I shall mention briefly. Jacques Driencourt has demonstrated that propaganda is totalitarian in its essence, not

because it is the handmaiden of the totalitarian State, but because it has a tendency to absorb everything. This finding is the best part of his work. It means that when one takes that route, one cannot stop halfway: one must use all instruments and all methods that make propaganda effective. One must expect and developments over the past dozen years show it-that the democracies will abandon their precautions and their nuances and throw themselves wholeheartedly into effective propaganda action. But such action will no longer have a special democratic character.

[To measure the effects that the making of propaganda has on democracy], we must distinguish between external and domestic propaganda. We must not retain the illusion that propaganda is merely a neutral instrument that one can use without being affected. It is comparable to radium, and what happens to the radiologists is well known.

* *

NOTES

1. Perceptive authors agree that without propaganda a democratic State is disarmed at home (vis-à-vis the parties) and abroad, the latter as a result of the famous "challenge" that sets the democracies and the totalitarian States against each other. But one must not overlook the many setbacks that democracy has suffered for lack of propaganda. Maurice Megret shows (in L'Action psychologique [Paris: A. Fayard; 1959]) that the crisis in which the French Army found itself from 1950 on was in large part caused by an absence of psychological action on the part of the government, and he demonstrates that the famous Plan was less than a great success for the same reasons. Finally, we must remember that if the democratic State is denied the right to make propaganda, such propaganda appears in the form of Public Relations at the expense of the State, and is all the more dangerous because camouflaged.

2. "Technique de formation de l'opinion publique," in L'Opinion Publique (1957).

3. In France. (Trans.)

4.

Propaganda as such is limited in the democracies by law, by the separation of powers, and so on.

5. See, for example, "Trends in Twentieth-Century Propaganda," by Ernst Kris and Nathan Leites, who contrast the appeal to the super-ego and to the irrational by authoritarian propaganda with democratic propaganda, which is directed at the ego.

6. La Propagande, nouvelle force politique (Paris: A. Colin; 1950).

IDEOLOGY

In a real sense, all international persuasive communication implies an ideology. Within this general concept, however, differences in ideological content are vast and highly significant. The inherent applicability of any specific ideology to psychological operations is often lessened as the meaning of the ideology is explicated in detail. This is because such specification forces an ideology to define itself in terms of concrete choices, choices which will alienate some even as they will attract others. The individual aspects of a broad philosophy can appeal however to different audiences, and the prudent, ideologically motivated communicator will be aware of the aspects he must emphasize and de-emphasize to appeal to different audiences.

A second major weakness of ideologically based appeals is, as Bernard

Yoh points out, that another government or group may choose to emphasize the contradictions between the communicator's ideology and the traditions and values of the audience.

Against such weaknesses must be weighed the ability of universalistic ideologies to produce "true believers." An all-encompassing ideology is an entire value system with its own justification and ethical code which some converts may find appealing, and in support of which they may become jealous or even fanatical.

COMMUNIST IDEOLOGY AND REVOLUTION*

BY JOHN H. NORTON

Selected elements of Marxian theory lend themselves unusually well to either totalitarian regimes' justification or stimuli for revolution.

An ideology is a philosophical construction which explains everything about the historical process by logical deduction from a single basic idea. Unlike other philosophies an ideology usually claims a monopoly of truth and is intolerant of other outlooks. In these aspects it bears a resemblance to religion, with which it is often compared. Unlike revealed religions, however, ideologies claim to be based upon scientific truth, since they deal with natural and not supernatural processes and since they are internally consistent. In this assertion, however, they err by ignoring the basis of scientific truth, which is composed of tentative (heuristic) propositions to be tested independently by many individuals against observable reality and discarded if they do not meet that empirical test. Despite the fact that they demand acceptance in the name of science, ideologies are dogmas which display very little curiosity about the real world. But in this respect they are less secure and more subject to change than religions. They purport to explain natural events, and they are therefore open to challenge when they fail to predict them.

Ideologies play an important role in social change. They seem to arise from the psychological stresses produced when a social system is not in equilibrium, and they serve the individual who accepts them as a means for relieving these tensions. In this respect they offer a consistent picture of the universe which gives meaning to the life of the individual and offers an explanation of the events he witnesses. Often they serve as replacements for old value systems which have broken down under social change, and they serve as a rallying point for those individuals who are dissatisfied with the social system.1

Because of their religious and pseudoscientific nature, ideologies can be used to influence and organize people. Those who use them for this

*Excerpts from "Russia, China, and Insurgency," Naval War College Review, XXIII, no. 2 (October 1970), pp. 60-68. Reprinted with the approval of the Editor, Naval War College Review, and the author.