Quote Originally Posted by Throbert McGee View Post
The cartoon version by "Узбекфильм" studios, crucially, retains the suburban-California setting of the original (instead of relocating it to, say, the reuins of a futuristic Odessa suburb!), and therefore the cartoon-skeletons that Soviet audiences saw crumbling to dust are the bodies of dead Americans, rather than dead Soviets..
You see, when I first read that story by Bradbury, I haven't really realized that fact. Also, in his Fahrenheit 451, if you remember, Bradbury has the [evil] cities destroyed and I never really realized back then those were actually the American cities. The Soviet propaganda worked the way that the nuclear Holocaust would always be global, so there would be no winners. I'm not sure how it looked from the US side, but from the USSR side it looked like: "Come on, let's destroy all the nuclear arms! We only have them because you had them first so we had no choice." If you remember, the Soviet Union supported ANY peace movement. For example, if you remember, the anthem of the socialistic World Federation of the Democratic Youth was composed in the USSR and started with words "The children of all nations, we live with a dream of peace. During these years of horror we're going to fight for the happiness." It's only years later I realized that the strategic plans of the USSR were to lightening-fast conquer Europe in days, assassinate the leaders of the US putting the weight of the decision to start the nuclear war with the Soviet Union on the shoulders of the newly appointed leaders. By the time those people could make any decisions, there would be nothing to defend in Europe and the USSR would not attack the US or use the nuclear weapons. It would therefore be the full responsibility of the US military leaders (and local US officers) to either start the destruction of the entire humanity or just not being involved with what happens in Europe. It was assumed the latter would occur. As soon as Europe would be liberated from the damn capitalism and the people would eventually set free from the unfair exploitation and have the chance to happily work, the local socialistic movements of all countries would gain very strong momentum. Also, many countries waiting to see which superpower is more powerful would haste to dump the US as soon as possible and to make friends with the USSR as soon as possible to get a better slice of the pie which is still hot from the oven. The capitalistic world would subsequently shrink even more meaning that the global market would also shrink inevitably cutting the revenues of the capitalistic world. The obvious outcome would follow. The entire propaganda of the USSR had to instill into minds of the entire world a simple idea that if the nuclear war starts, it would inevitably mean the destruction of the entire humanity and possibly of the entire global ecosystem. (Which is possibly true.) That simple and powerful idea played in favour of the USSR plans for the WWIII and strategically disadvantaged the US. Like I said earlier, I think by the late 70s - early 80s the US had little to no chance. It ought to be mainly a pshychological war with the US itself. But, there had always been a chance some crazy colonel on an isolated Alaska nuclear silo would receive no orders from the higher command and push the button first causing the domino effect. That's why I think some of the high leaders of the Soviet Union eventually chickened, Andropov died, and the "remodeling" started as a way to revive the economy a little and prolong the well-being of the Party and the leaders.