“At one time, the Soviets and the Americans were united in theme. Manners, upbringing, outlook: chivalry, kindness, admiration of nature, respect for elders, the celebration of the warrior ethic, these themes were in most Soviet and American animation. Sure, both empires had their overt or covert propaganda, espousing the wonders of the proletariat or the glory of anarcho-capitalism, the victory of the peasant over the parasitic banker, the victory of the white Anglo-Saxons over red savagery and devil worship,” writes Richard Wilson on the British website Arktos in a very interesting text that analyses and compares Soviet and American animated films.
But it is not just about animated films. It’s about the basic observation that it was not just the socialist regimes of the Soviet side that were swept away in the 1980s, but equally uncompromisingly the regimes of Western Europe and the beautiful beautiful America of the 1950s-1980s. In some places the change was called revolution, in others reform, but the result was the same everywhere.
When we were shown pictures of West Germany as a counterbalance to Czechoslovak socialism, we were lied to, because they hated the West German system at the time as much as they hated ours.
I am afraid that unless we understand the nature of the conflict, we will not be able to stop the collapse of civilisation.