TV programs worth watching
Sun 27 June — Sat 3 July

Only one program in this week's Worth Watching. The reason 
will become clear as you read. Back to the normal format next 
week.

Very few people these days read history books for pleasure. Most 
people get their understanding of history from TV.

For their part, most television programs on historical themes are 
put together by TV producers, not historians. Popularity is 
ultimately more important to them than whether the interpretation 
they are presenting is correct.

Even historical programs fronted by a specific historian are 
deformed by this need to sublimate the content to ratings. An 
historian who advances an unpopular point of view is not going to 
get his or her own program.

An historian who declared that the Soviet Union made the biggest 
contribution to Allied victory in WW2, in fact a bigger 
contribution than all the other Allies put together, would be 
hastily labelled a crank and a crackpot. A series of his or her 
own would not be an option.

Why? Because the "free press", the "unfettered media", that 
capitalism always brags about is in fact not free at all. The 
more popular or effective a form of media is, the more tightly 
the capitalist system will want to control it.

Television, the most powerful and effective medium of all, is 
very tightly controlled, whether it is in private or public 
hands. Capitalism makes sure that TV does not produce programs 
exposing the many ways workers are exploited by the ruling class 
(would make a great series, though, wouldn't it?).

Nor does it tolerate programs that show ordinary people uniting 
in struggle to improve their working conditions, get better 
housing or secure a bigger share of the wealth they produce.

And just as rigorously, the capitalists make sure that TV 
presents their version of history. This is a history that ignores 
or distorts class struggle; that eulogises leading capitalists; 
that falsifies the causes of war, laying the blame anywhere but 
at its own doorstep; and that seeks to consign the victories of 
the working class to oblivion.

The successes of the working class are treated as achievements of 
the ruling class instead, or simply ignored, rendering them 
effectively non-existent. To help with this obfuscation, 
excessive amounts of time and space are given to alternative 
events in which the ruling class was prominent.

In time, the alternative events are the only ones people will 
remember, for they are the only ones on view.

Almost all aspects of the Second World War have been given this 
treatment for several decades now. Whether it is the causes of 
the War, those responsible, the Nuremburg War Crimes Tribunal, 
the Resistance movement, or the course of the War itself, the 
historical account presented for popular consumption has been 
consistently distorted and misrepresented.

Every year the lies grow bigger and the truth recedes further. 
Even the millions of victims of Nazi genocide are subject to this 
evil skewing of history, concentrating on one tragic group to the 
exclusion of an even larger group, so that more than half the 
victims of the Nazi death camps are totally ignored.

To get a good, reliable depiction of the Second World War it is 
helpful to go to works produced near — or immediately after — 
the end of it, before Churchill and Truman's Cold War had been 
able to overcome the positive attitudes of the Anti-Fascist 
Alliance.

In fact, one of the best compilation documentaries ever made was 
the 1945 Anglo-US film The True Glory by Garson Kanin and 
Carol Reed. The True Glory was distinguished by two 
things: it used the voices of actual soldiers to provide the 
"commentary", and it struck everyone with its humanity and 
honesty.

It was, and probably remains, the most popular compilation film 
on WW2. I saw it in the early '60s, and I remember in particular 
the scene near the end where the Yanks reach the Elbe River and 
are greeted by Soviet troops with a huge banner: "Greetings to 
the Heroes' Army of the Unites States of America!".

An American soldier's voice comes on the soundtrack saying in 
awed tones: "Gee, we did pretty well, but I'd hate to think where 
we'd have been without them!" Can you imagine a modern day US 
documentary feature putting forward that sentiment?

Certainly you won't find it in D-Day To Berlin on As It 
Happened (SBS 7.30pm Saturdays). A three-part BBC 
compilation, D-Day To Berlin covers the same ground as 
Kanin and Reed's film but from a significantly different 
perspective.

In fact, since Kanin and Reed's film was compiled from newsreel 
footage, it is quite likely that some of the identical footage 
will appear in the new film. D-Day To Berlin views D-Day 
(and the subsequent ten months as the Anglo-US troops advanced 
eastwards into Germany) as an event "that changed the course of 
European life forever", even as — would you believe? — "the 
defining drama of the Second World War".

Like the older film, D-Day To Berlin also uses the 
powerful testimonies of those who took part. But it must be said, 
without in any way wishing to belittle the courage, determination 
and suffering of the men who fought their way across Western 
Europe, D-Day was not the main event.

That was over in the East. Most of the German armour, most of the 
German guns, most of Germany's airforce and most of the German 
army were confronting the Soviet army.

The leaders of Britain and France had promised to open a Second 
Front in Western Europe in 1942, but continually reneged on the 
agreement in subsequent years while they held secret peace 
negotiations with Germany (excluding the USSR).

As I said a couple of weeks ago: despite public demonstrations in 
support of opening a second front, the capitalist powers only 
went ahead with it when it had become clear that the USSR would 
otherwise liberate Europe single-handed.

It was essentially a political — rather than a military — 
operation. But capitalism's propagandists are being encouraged to 
make it out to be not only "one of the greatest-ever military 
offensives", but the military conflict of the European theatre.

Young people in every capitalist country are being assiduously 
taught that the US and Britain, by means of the D-Day landings, 
defeated Germany. It's untrue, it's immoral and it's an insult to 
the millions of Soviet troops who died to defeat Hitlerite 
fascism.