The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend

To some extent what you write is true, but there was a significant proportion of the American establishment that believed the line presented in this film. Davies was the U.S. envoy to Moscow and, having been hoodwinked by the Soviet state, convinced others of the legitimacy of the charges presented. Though I don't doubt the scientific validity of your thoroughly accurate "evil scale", to diminish the role that the USSR played in defeating Germany is flat-out-wrong. Certainly Stalin was among the most despotic and murderous men ever to walk this earth, but the Russians were the main reason for the faultering of Hitler's advance.

"Build my gallows high, baby."

i don't see the movie yet, but i confused about the part of the story that relates do leon trotsky (who saw what stalin's regime become, and eventually gonna murdered by stalin orders)
i'm not right-wing, but hardly a "stalinist" , is interressing to in HUAC they putta the almost spys what just the ones who have a copy of something written by marx at home in the same category (it's funny read what the stars of the time have to say about that, totally confused things)

This movie was produced for the same reasons lots of "patriotic" films were made during WWII -- to show our allies in a favorable light, maintain morale and U.S. support for them. Obviously the pro-Soviet films made ("The North Star", "Song of Russia", "Days of Glory", etc.) painted a false picture of the USSR as a paradise of singing peasants to contrast them with the murderous Nazis and make them seem more like us. "Mission to Moscow" is the most overtly political of these movies and so the most outrageous. Almost everything it says is either an outright lie or grossly distorted. But it's invaluable as an example -- probably the prime example -- of much of the official mindset in that era. Also, for all its falsehoods and rewriting of history, it remains a fascinating and entertaining film, by far the "best" (dramatically and cinematically) of such films made during the war. It's much better in an artistic sense than most of the mindless (if occasionally entertaining) anti-Communist films made in the early 50s. In this it is much like "The Birth of a Nation" (1915), a cinematic milestone with ground-breaking filmmaking techniques, but a film spouting the most horrendous, vile racism and outright lies about the Klan, Reconstruction, and so on. MTM isn't quite that bad but it should be seen in its historical context and enjoyed as an excellent piece of filmmaking, as long as viewers are educated to recognize its lies and to see Stalin as the murderous psychopath he was.

That's why jimadamgolfer's closing remark ("If I ran the studio that produced this trash, I would have burned every print a long time ago") is so objectionable. You can't burn ideas, my friend, and what you're advocating was done by, oh, let's see, Hitler, among others (Stalin, too). Of course, you can burn art, you can burn books, and you can burn men, but to advocate any such thing shows that you share some of the same reckless, even evil, impulses you denounce so strongly. (Not to mention that it's inimical to the cause of film preservation.)

Hitler was neither the greater evil nor more dangerous.

It was Stalin, not Hitler, who was bend on world conquest. Who was it who sponsored the Communist International? Hitler had no plans or even ambitions of world control - the Soviets did.

Hitler kept pretty much to himself. Germany wanted more liebensraum, but only within traditional German lands. The Soviets wanted to control the whole world.

Hitler has suffered from a bad press. In fact the representations of him get worse year by year. He was no worse than many modern politicians. Unlike people like Tony Blair and George W Bush, he was no crook. And he certainly was not stupid.