The Beatles were often accused of being ‘Communist’ in the US – or at least ‘sympathetic’ to the Communist cause. Interestingly, as a group there was never any wide sweeping ‘denial’ of this allegation. The Beatles, of course, were multi millionaires and so were not typical of the starving masses that usually turn toward the Marxist-Leninist ideology! Although The Beatles often criticised the injustices and inequalities within the predatory capitalist system, nevertheless, all of the Fab Four had collaborated with the predatory capitalist system and had done quite well out of it! On the other hand, all four were working class and had been born into a very Socialistic Great Britain! The 1945 Labour Party had introduced into the UK a number of Soviet-style Socialist establishments such as the Welfare State, the National Health Service (NHS) and completely ‘free’ further and higher education! Due to this Socialistic redistribution of wealth the UK experienced an economic boom during the 1960s which empowered the nation’s youth and enabled a generation to ‘experiment’ with new thought forms and modes of living!
Out of this social and cultural milieu came the astonishing manifestation of The Beatles music! This wall of sound seemed to generate a continuous process that involved a dialectical deconstruction (and reconstruction) of the listener’s thought forms! Obviously, given the right circumstances, this radical intervention that interrupted the conditioning of ‘how’ an individual thinks – possesses the potential to dramatically alter how an individual might behave! This describes the Revolutionary aspect of The Beatles music which has absolutely NOTHING to do with preserving the status quo (indeed, it is the antithesis of the status quo) and has more in common with the methodology associated with the thought processes of Marx and Engels – in essence if not necessarily in expression.
What Marx and Engels achieved through the innovative use of words – The Beatles achieved through the innovative use of musical notes! Both entities strike the human mind like a lightning bolt! Once experienced, things are never quite the same again! This is a reality that the agency of US anti-intellectualism seems to sense quite naturally – hence the religious right’s antipathy to The Beatles, their persona and their music, not to mention their outspoken opposition to the Vietnam War and established religion! Coupled with this is the US anti-intellectual ‘rejection’ of The Beatles experimentation with drugs and their daring to write positive songs about the agency of Revolution and the USSR! John Lennon’s insistence upon ‘race mixing’ (through his relationships with the Japanese Yoko Ono and the Chinese May Pang) was viewed with disgust by many ‘White’ Americas during the 1960s – when this country was busy dropping tonnes of bombs onto non-White populations throughout Asia!
Between 1941-1945 the Nazi Germans (and its many ‘Catholic’ allies) invaded the USSR with the idea of committing ‘genocide’ against the Slavic population (which Hitler had decreed must be eradicated due to it being ‘polluted’ by Jewish-inspired Bolshevism). After this incursion – 41 million Soviet men, women and children would lie dead – all killed by the fascist invaders! Meanwhile, across Western and Eastern Europe the Hitlerites murder a further 11 million men, women and children during the Holocaust! These Nazi German casualties are separate and distinct to those people and populations killed by the Fascist Italians (1922-1943) and the Imperial Japanese (1931-1945) – which also number in the tens of millions. When the UK and the US relied upon the USSR between 1941-1945 – it was obvious that Hitler’s National Socialism and the USSR’s Scientific Socialism were two very different and antagonistic ideologies.
After 1945, however, the US government broke every treaty with the USSR and pursued a policy of outward aggression. NATO was developed and ex-Nazis were quickly re-armed due to their anti-Soviet attitudes! The US anti-intellectual attitude was formulated that there was NO difference between the Nazi Germans and the Soviet Union – and this falsehood was taught throughout the country’s education system and perpetuated throughout American media outlets! As the US was ‘paying’ for the reconstruction of Western Europe – part of the conditions for this assistance was that this anti-Soviet attitude had to be adopted across the board by every country outside the United States – even though it had no basis in reality. The Cold War was started and sustained not by any ‘imagined’ aggression threatened of the Soviet Union – but solely by the ignorance of US anti-intellectualism!
Heinz Edelmann (1934-2009) was the ‘Art Director’ of the 1968 animated film ‘Yellow Submarine’ – which was ‘about’ The Beatles. He was not alive when the 2012 Blu-Ray of this film was produced. His surname appears ‘Jewish’ but I cannot find any data on this in the biographical material. His family were ethnic Germans from Czechoslovakia – which was invaded by the Nazi Germans (and the Fascist Polish) during 1938! Many ethnic Germans welcomed this invasion – and were soon joined by hundreds of thousands more ethnic Germans (from Nazi Germany) all taking advantage of Hitler’s ‘Lebensraum’ (or ‘Living Space’) policy! As vast areas were cleared of the disabled and the religious and racially ‘unfit’ – ethnic Germans soon occupied these ‘new’ spaces (often taking possession of fully furnished homes whilst never asking ‘where’ these dwellings had come from or enquiring as to the whereabouts of the previous occupants)! There is speculation that the family of Heinz Edelmann ‘collaborated’ with the Nazi Germans and this why they lived comfortably during the Nazi German Occupation.
Heinz Edelmann lived from 1938-1945 under the Nazi German Occupation of Czechoslovakia – with ‘nothing’ untoward happening to his family. This is suspicious in and of itself – and when the Soviet Red Army Liberated the country during 1945 – a ‘Socialist’ government was formed which began the ‘de-Nazification’ process. Heinz Edelmann and his family were deported to West Germany in 1946 due to their ambiguous past. As he developed into a talented illustrator – he was chosen as the ‘Art Director’ for the animated film – ‘Yellow Submarine’. Other than this role – he had no other input. He was not responsible for the ideology, storyline or direction of the film and had no direct contact with The Beatles or their Management. Indeed, just 22 years after the end of WWII – I doubt his pro-German and anti-Soviet views would have gone down too well with the naturally left-wing Beatles.
According to the audio commentary contained on the 2012 Blu-Ray as provided by the ‘Production Supervisor’ – the British John Coates – the characters of the ‘Blue Meanies’ had absolutely NOTHING to do with any ‘anti-Communist’ message (a theme that had no presence in the film and which would have been out of place in a 1960s Great Britain). The ‘Animation Director’ – the British Jack Stokes – supports this view. Furthermore, Heinz Edelmann’s own ‘Assistant’ – the British Millicent McMillan – categorically DENIES that the ‘Blue Meanies’ were ever meant to be depicted as ‘Red’! Millicent McMillan states that Heinz Edelmann had NO experience with working in film or with animation – and did NOT understand the correct (or appropriate) use of ‘colour’ in such projects given the technology of the time! Indeed, Millicent McMillan explains that the ‘Blue Meanies’ were ostensibly floated as being ‘Purple’ by Edelmann – but this colour was unacceptable for various technical reasons.
As Heinz Edelmann had no direct input with the storyline, an interesting question is why he was permitted to state the false opinion (also included on the Blu-Ray but obviously recorded sometime ago) that the film ‘Yellow Submarine’ was ‘anti-Communist’ (it is not) – or that the ‘Blue Meanies’ were supposed to be the ‘Red Meanies’? He makes one further (ludicrous) claim – namely that there is ‘no difference’ between Nazi Germany and the USSR – an opinion straight out of the CIA handbook that defines and guides US anti-intellectualism! I suspect that if The Beatles had become aware of Heinz Edelmann’s ridiculous opinions at the time, they would have ‘withdrawn’ from the film and the project would have crashed and burned. If the casual reader peruses the internet today – Heinz Edelmann’s false opinion is strewn across endless websites – simply because that is what the agency of US anti-intellectualism wants the world to think! Thank goodness the music of The Beatles is stronger than these attempts at disinformation!
THE SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 