Propaganda in Russia
A column by Mikhail Zygar
November 6th, 2022
People are starving in Europe, Berlin is cutting down the trees in the central Tiergarten park:
Moscow’s state media are fantasizing themselves into the abyss.
In comparison, the indoctrination of the Soviet Union was harmless.
Now Russian propaganda is breaking all records. It gradually immerses the Russians in a completely fictional world. It is as far from reality as possible. But this is not the whole problem.
In recent weeks, her focus has shifted. The main topic now is the terrible, simply unbearable life in Europe. All over the world people are suffering and dying from hunger and cold – and all because they were so careless as to argue with Russia. That’s what the state media says.
The state news agency recently reported that the Tiergarten in Berlin was cut down because residents of the German capital were using firewood for heating. Then there was the news that Europeans were collecting dried manure for their ovens because they were running out of trees. Oh, and food is becoming scarce in Europe. No exaggeration – this is what journalists in the state press report in all seriousness.
And, incredibly, this image delights many Russians. They have long had the feeling that their lives are poorer than those of Europeans. In 2014, Russian propaganda took a new course: it increased the self-esteem of the Russian population at the expense of Europe. Everything is on fire there, there are only catastrophes, crimes, terrorism, obscurantism everywhere. Only Russia is an island of stability, there is enough to eat and the Russian state protects the people.
Russian television provided two pieces of evidence for a dying Europe: First, Europe is being overrun by migrants. Second, the LGBT community oppresses everyone else. Since the outbreak of war, however, the state media has had to make a special effort. When living standards in Russia began to decline due to sanctions, television declared that it was actually Europeans, not Russians, who were suffering.
Soviet media did not fantasize
The new propaganda is reminiscent of the Soviet Union. At that time it was also focused on the contrast between East and West. The newspaper Pravda, for example, described in detail how blacks were oppressed in America and how high the unemployment rate was in capitalist countries. “Spring has come to the streets of Paris, but ordinary Parisians don’t like it,” was the legendary sentence of a Soviet television columnist.
However, there were important differences compared to today’s indoctrination. For the most part, the Soviet media did not allow itself to fantasize. True, they reported on trivialities, financed pro-Soviet organizations and then inflated their importance or interpreted events for their own benefit. However, they never created parallel worlds. They knew, ironically, that they did not live in a closed room and that blatant fiction would always be exposed – and the perpetrators could be punished.
In a global world with the Internet, of all things in the information age, such moral constraints no longer seem to exist. On the contrary, the media thinks up whatever they want. As if there were no single correct reality – every fiction is as credible as life itself. Journalists are no longer afraid to construct the world that they want or that corresponds to the interests of their client – i.e. the government.
In addition, the residents of the USSR did not believe a word of the central television. They joked about the most important Soviet newspaper that there was no truth in Pravda. Now everything is different. Even the craziest and most delusional propaganda works, it looks convincing and millions of viewers are convinced by it.
It’s been ten years since an amazing cocktail was created. The Kremlin ideologues were worried because the lifeless, Soviet-looking television presenters were no longer inspiring viewers. People didn’t want to listen to them, didn’t want to believe them. So the Kremlin ideologists took their cues from the West, particularly the American broadcaster Fox News. They transformed the buttoned-up propagandists into lively people – even slightly crazy city dwellers. They made them scream at each other, curse each other, beat each other up live on air.
Soviet propaganda multiplied by Fox News – that’s what got ratings! It turns out that TV stations don’t have to tell the truth, just what viewers want to hear. Populist propaganda based not on reality but on the baser preferences of the viewer. To hurray patriotism, xenophobia and homophobia. An incredible phenomenon. And many of those who hated the new Russian television still couldn’t tear themselves away from it.
The nonsense will remain even if Putin dies
It is possible that propaganda is leading Russian society into a trap. This is also reminiscent of the excellent film “Goodbye, Lenin” from 2003. There, a loving son creates a fictional reality for his terminally ill mother: He claims that the Berlin Wall has not fallen, that the GDR still exists and that Erich Honecker is still there power. The son even spins fake news for the mother. Now most of Russia takes on the role of this dying mother. She obediently believes all the nonsense shown on television.
Of course, there is the possibility that, just like in the film, the deception will be exposed at some point. The ailing public will realize that they are being lied to – the discrepancy between reality and the television image is all too obvious. But unfortunately there is another way. We now know that a fictional reality can be very persistent. Millions of people can live in their fictional worlds and spread their fantasies further.
Soviet propaganda shaped and traumatized several generations, even though it was so unconvincing. The Russian state media’s current nonsense will cause greater damage than what Putin is doing now – because it will remain, even if Putin dies.
Original in German, published in Spiegel Online – translated by J. Gather