Bees (Russian film), 1954

This program presents a film produced in the Soviet Union as propaganda celebrating the "hive." Host Charles Collingwood first looks at the film without its soundtrack, as a natural history film, and then comments on its use as a propaganda film. Viewed from a historical perspective, the McCarthy era and Cold War mentality of Americans is evident and provides an interesting angle to the subject at hand. Soviet scientists produced a beautifully photographed film on the life of a bee in a hive, including close-ups of the hive, queen and drones, bees repairing the hive, etc. As a propaganda tool, to the Soviets the hive becomes a representation of communist society, with the people as a whole and all components of it working for the greater good. At the conclusion of this discussion, the show looks at American individualism in a patriotic ethnocentric fashion. The broadcast ends with an image of a model of Rodin's The Thinker.