Image courtesy of the Chronicling in America
Foreign View
Image courtesy of Google Sites.
Image courtesy of Google Sites.
The Soviets always had to be first. Civilians knew that the government was only in the race to prove that communism was superior, not because they wanted to improve the nation technologically for the nation's benefit. In the Soviet Union, the common civilian did not have access to the kind of information that Americans had. "The Soviet government withheld as much information as possible because they didn’t want the civilians to be aware of American success and so that the Soviet people wouldn't question how their own country was being run. It went the same way on the other side of the competition; the Americans had to be quiet about what they were doing because they didn’t want the Soviet Union to use their failures as propaganda to promote the Soviet system" (Khrushchev).
The propaganda that was advertised in the Soviet Union was meant to show the civilians that capitalism was not working in America and that their system was better. When the Americans first landed on the moon, the Soviet government portrayed it as fake. "They advertised the real footage as an American Hollywood made film. The American success showed that capitalism was working, and the Soviets didn’t like that because they still believed in communism. This is part of the reason why the Space Race did not effectively prove anything the way it was supposed to" (Khrushchev).
Secretly, the Soviets were okay, because it was a step for mankind, not just for the United States. Soon the Soviet civilians began to discover that something was wrong with their country and how America was successful and they were not. However, they couldn’t speak about it because the Russian government would punish them.
Civilians were told time and time again that anything wrong in the Soviet Union was a result of something America did, this was when some began to see corruption. "They knew the moon landing was real, and they knew America was successful, so they began to question their own government" (Khrushchev) .
Image courtesy of the Chronicling in America
Russian newspaper the Pravda which means "truth". Front page depicts, "First Lunar Expedition" published on July 22, 1969, two days after the Apollo 11 Moon Landing. It only stated that the U.S initiated a lunar expedition, it never said the U.S accomplished its mission.
All images are coutesy of PBS News Hour. All text translated with Google Translate.
"Soviet man—be proud, you opened the road to stars from Earth! Glory to the conquerors of the universe!"
"In the name of peace"
"With Lenin's name!"
"To the Sun! To the stars!"
"Into space!"
"Our triumph in space is the hymn to Soviet country!"
"October opened the road to space!"
"Fatherland! You lit the star of progress and peace. Glory to science, glory to labor! Glory to the Soviet regime!"
"The way for man is open!"
"Conquer space!"
"Sons of October—Pioneers of the Universe!"
"Glory to the Soviet people—the pioneer of space!"
"We will open the distant worlds!"
"From students' models to spaceships!"