Road Movie to Berlin

Megan McArdle links to this propaganda classic of Stalin paying a visit to Berlin:

"Stalin, upon viewing it, is said to have remarked that it was so lovely, he wished he had actually gone," she says. Mark Kleiman adds that "By the same token, no doubt George W. Bush wishes he'd actually accomplished the mission."

Comments

According to Harry Reid, the mission has long been accomplished. Oh well, I guess Harry Reid is not part of the Reality-Based Community(TM).

Posted by Al | June 10, 2007 12:04 PM

Al, you used to put so much more effort into your moronic hackery. Is something the matter at home?

Posted by grh | June 10, 2007 12:38 PM

"We were once so close to heaven / Peter came out and gave us medals / Declaring us the Nicest of the Damned"

Posted by Chris | June 10, 2007 1:09 PM

Everything's fine at home, grh, but work has picked up and I have a new baby, so less time for moronic hackery. Thanks for asking. I guess you agree with Harry Reid that the mission has actually been accomplished, right?

Posted by Al | June 10, 2007 1:11 PM

I agree, Al. The mission is accomplished. Let us then beat swords to plowshares and leave.

Posted by sangfroid826 | June 10, 2007 2:19 PM

Notice the the US and French flags in the crowd in the background? That was interesting.

Posted by Thunderlips | June 10, 2007 2:20 PM

Actually, Stalin did visit Berlin--or at least Potsdam, for the 1945 conference with Truman and Churchill (replaced by Attlee in the middle of the conference).

US envoy Averell Harriman remarked to him there that it must have been a great triumph for him to be in the capital of the defeated Reich. According to Harriman, Stalin replied, perhaps somewhat ominously, "Alexander I made it all the way to Paris!"

Posted by David T | June 10, 2007 2:44 PM

Ah yes, The Fall of Berlin, what a film! Too bad there is only this relatively realistic clip on YouTube. How I would love to see the scenes with Hitler again, and to hear his Russian with a heavy German accent. Eva Braun has the best lines: "Did you use the hair water I gave you, Adolf?"

Posted by ~~~~ | June 10, 2007 3:05 PM

Over at Megan's, you can see a commenter longing for the days of the blacklist (and labelling the Office of War Information-assisted Ginger Rogers vehicle Tender Comrade, a movie about the importance of wartime rationing and sacrifice on the home front, as "blatantly pro-Communist"; said commenter also accuses Rogers of being a Communist dupe). Hurrah for propaganda.

Posted by Steve | June 10, 2007 4:11 PM

Al:

I guess you agree with Harry Reid that the mission has actually been accomplished, right?

Al, this is very sad to see. I hope this dropoff in your level of idiotic hackery isn't permanent...but if it is, you really shouldn't tarnish everyone's memory of your legendary years at the summit of hackdom with this kind of Jordan-with-the-Wizards type of performance.

Posted by grh | June 10, 2007 6:18 PM

actually, insofar as we can say there was a "mission" in iraq, it was to remove saddam from power.

mission accomplished, just like reid says.

now, bush's notion of a "mission" for iraq is a totally different matter, and it will never be accomplished, because it can't even be defined.

Posted by howard | June 10, 2007 7:29 PM

I didn't know Leni Riefenstahl also did Soviet films as well. Triumph des Willens in translation or perhaps kitsch is just kitsch?

Posted by Simplicissimus | June 10, 2007 9:08 PM

Steve, you've hit the nail on the head. I'm disappointed in Yglesias for posting this, which is basically fuel for the Neo-McCarthyite fire.

Any talk about US war crimes in Vietnam, colonialism, imperialism, or other crimes of capitalism? Any mockery of greedy people? I admit that Stalin messed up communism and basicially made it into fascism, but we should be focusing on defeating the right-wing hate machine here at home, not arguing about water under the bridge.

Posted by B.B. | June 10, 2007 10:36 PM

Huh?

Posted by DRR | June 11, 2007 3:29 AM

Steve, did you catch the guy over there claiming that "Bridge on the River Kwai" was actually Communist-written anti-war propaganda aimed at denigrating British military tradition?

Where do they find them?

Posted by MikeN | June 11, 2007 4:03 AM

Where do they find them?

Well, that particular guy is a wingnut who I remember seeing pop up on Brad deLong's site. If I had no context for interpreting Megan's writing, it wouldn't be fair for me to make judgments about her based on his presence alone. But yeah, those comments really a magnificent example of aesthetic Stalinism, no pun intended, particularly since I think Dalton Trumbo's best-known works are the notoriously Trotskyite Spartacus and the Maoist recruitment tool Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Posted by Steve | June 11, 2007 2:46 PM