6. War Propaganda
Pursuing all political events with interest as I did, I had always been much interested in propaganda activity. In it I saw an instrument which the Socialist-Marxist organization especially understood and used with masterly skill. I came early to realize that the proper employment of propaganda is a real art, one that had always remained almost unknown to the bourgeois parties. Only the Christian Socialist movement, particularly in Lueger’s day, achieved a certain virtuosity on this instrument, to which indeed it owed much of its success.
But not until the war was there a chance to see the enormous results which properly directed propaganda can produce. Here again, unfortunately, the other side was the sole subject of study, for on our side the activity in this direction was more than modest. But it was the absolute failure of the whole enlightening activity on the German side, glaringly conspicuous to every soldier, which now led me to investigate more thoroughly the propaganda question.
Often there was more than enough time for reflection, but it was the enemy who gave us practical instruction, unfortunately all too well.
That which we omitted to do, our adversaries made good with extraordinary skill and a calculation amounting to genius. Even I learned an infinite amount from the enemy war propaganda. But of course time passed without a trace over those heads to which it should have been a most salutary lesson; some of them thought themselves too clever to take lessons from the enemy, and the rest had not even an honest will to learn.
Did we really have any propaganda at all?
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