Molotov’s Bread Basket or: Mana, Soviet Style

Found this interesting photo on the WW2 In Color site. It is a 1940′s Soviet cluster bomb.

I assume the paddle-like bits at the top are fins offset so the device would spin on the way down, throwing the little bombs it contains over a wide area. Interesting is the media “spin” the Soviets put on their campaign against Finland. Here is the photo’s description (emphasis mind):

Finnish Civil Guard boy next to a “Molotov’s bread basket”

The RRAB-3 was a Soviet-made droppable bomb dispenser that combined a large high-explosive charge with a cluster of incendiary bombs. It was used against the cities of Finland during the Winter War of 1939–1940. The bomb consisted of a cylinder 2.25 metres (7.4 ft) long and 0.9 metres (3.0 ft) in diameter.

At the beginning of the Winter War in 1939, the Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov claimed that Russia was not bombing Finland, but merely dropping food to starving Finnish people. The Finns soon dubbed the RRAB-3 cluster bomb as “Molotov’s bread basket”, and named the improvised incendiary device that they used to destroy Soviet tanks the Molotov cocktail, as “a drink to go with the food”.

One can only wonder how much nerve it takes to lie like that, and who the hell would have believed it. THis is on the same level as the Nazi’s obscene “Arbeit Macht Frei” slogan. 70 years ago perhaps one could control the media in one’s own country, but selling the bombing of a modern country in the age of war correspondence and radio as dropping food beggars belief. One might think that with the internet (perhaps moreso than with the big-business media outlets), it would be hard to get away with this crap even within one’s own borders today, but I think there is still too little risk attached to such blatant lies to put an end to it. In some places like North Korea, such lies  still work well but even in the West they still have some currency. Countries are invaded to root out non-existent WMDs and to liberate oil, I mean people, from cruel dicatorships. Big corporations extoll their benevolence around the world and abuse local populations horribly. Free enterprise brings profits for a few freedom and prosperity to many. For profit health care is good while egalitarian options lead only to death panels.

Alas.