Josef Stalin successfully used propaganda during the 1940s. He and his successors used jamming devices to keep information from Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty from reaching Russian ears. In the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin employed newspapers, Pravda and Izvestia, and TV “news” shows to lie to his people. Most soldiers who listened on their radios treated it as entertainment. American forces could listen to several women they called “Tokyo Rose,” whose Japanese propaganda was aimed at demoralizing troops by telling them they were losing the war. The Nazi propaganda effort was headed by Joseph Goebbels, to whom the term “The Big Lie,” meaning if one tells a lie often enough people will come to believe it is true, has been attributed. Germany and Japan had their own propaganda machines to advance an evil agenda.
During World War II, American propaganda was considered a necessary tool in the pursuit of victory in a moral cause. As with many things, propaganda can be used for good or for ill, depending on who dispenses it.
