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This is coolbert:

It was quite common during the era of the Cold War, and especially during the 1950's and the 1960's to see film clips of communist youth in the Soviet Union and in China at "play".

And these film clips purportedly showed to the American public how "ready" the communist countries were for war and how their youth was being groomed for military action at even the earliest of ages.

This was especially true for the film clips that came out of Communist China.

Children of grammar school age would be showed doing close-order drill, military style, and doing it quite well too.

And doing this drill under the command of one of their peers who was acting as their "commander".

Drill would be followed by the children having to run through an obstacle course on the "playground". And this obstacle course would be identical to that what would be found in a military camp, albeit perhaps cut down to a more moderate size for the small bodies of the children.

Following the obstacle course, the children would then be shown puppets and straw stuffed dummies of Uncle Sam [representing the U.S. of course]. And the children would be given a real rifle, not a toy, with a bayonet on it, and would be shown making bayonet thrusts into the body of the dummy, yelling and screaming. I believe these children were actually wielding a SKS carbine, which has a folding bayonet.

U.S. commentators, upon seeing these film clips, would use every opportunity to warn the American public that this was an omen of things to come.

American soft, weak, and lazy youth just could not compete with the communist youth. The communist youth, raised under austere conditions, were just so much better prepared for the coming conflict with the capitalists.

Capitalists just did not stand a chance against the communists, who were molding and raising their youth for conflict and the eventual defeat of the west and America in particular.

We know now that much of this was all a show.

Intended to scare and intimidate. Military wise the communist powers were strong. Societal wise they were weak. These film clips were just another way of presenting to the west a form of deception as enunciated by Sun Tzu 2500 years ago. "When strong, appear weak, and when weak, appear strong."

coolbert.