Kremlin's Words and Deeds is an English-language poster in the State Department's Asia poster file, dated 9 January 1952. It tabulates U.S., other, and Soviet contributions to six UN welfare programs in millions of dollars, lists the Soviets at zero in each, and calls a Soviet charge at Geneva false (NAID 5729981).
What the poster prints
The sheet is built like an annual report. Bar charts compare the United States with "other nations." A hand with a hammer and sickle on the cuff turns its thumb down. A table sets out the money, and four photographs with captions show children, displaced people, Korean refugees, and medical care.
KREMLIN'S WORDS AND DEEDS
[...]
The Record of United Nations Welfare Aid (By Millions of Dollars)
PROGRAM U.S. Others Soviets
Children's Fund 75.0 32.2 0
Palestine Refugees 43.5 38.7 0
International Refugees 237.1 158.4 0
Technical Assistance 12.0 8.0 0
World Health 6.9 1.1 0
Korean Relief 162.5 87.7 0
Stalinists often use international agencies as sounding boards for their imperialistic propaganda. At a meeting of the United Nations Economic and Social Council in Geneva the Kremlin's delegate accused the United States of arming western Europe instead of helping better the conditions of underprivileged peoples. This false charge was a strange one from a dictatorship that contributes nothing to great movements aimed at helping the world's unfortunate and disaster-stricken peoples.
How to read it
The figures are the poster's own. This page does not audit them against UN accounts. Taken as printed, they make a sharp point: in six UN welfare programs, the Soviet column is empty.
The archive tags the sheet with card stacking and name-calling, and both are visible. The card stacking is in the choice of measure. Voluntary contributions to six UN programs are one way to score a country's record toward poor nations, and the poster offers no other. The name-calling is in the paragraph: "Stalinists," "imperialistic propaganda," "dictatorship." The facts in the table would have stood without the adjectives. The adjectives tell the reader how to feel before the reader has done the sums.
There is also a quieter claim worth checking. The Soviet charge was that the United States was arming western Europe instead of helping the poor. The poster answers the second half and says nothing about the first.
Who issued it
The record names the State Department's information program, later the U.S. Information Agency, in the "Propaganda Posters Distributed in Asia" series. The sheet names no American issuer, and the archive classes the source as blurred. A Burmese edition is also in the archive.
Related: the 1948 American Aid label sheet, which brands the aid itself, and the germ-warfare rebuttal.
Sources
- FRAME object record, "Kremlin's Words and Deeds (English poster distributed in Asia)," 9 January 1952. U.S. Information Agency (predecessor: State Department International Information and Educational Exchange Program).
- U.S. National Archives, Record Group 306, Propaganda Posters Distributed in Asia, 306-PPA-80, NAID 5729981, retrieved by the archive 3 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work).
