Commentary
It might seem that Vladimir Putin doesn’t have a propaganda problem, at least at home. George Orwell presented a vision of the totalitarian future—based on what Stalin’s Russia was already like—in his 1949 dystopian novel “1984.” It’s a world where opposition can’t even be thought.
In Orwell’s fictional world, Big Brother sees everything; all media and education are state-controlled and promote the same message. Everyone is under close and constant surveillance. People convince themselves that what they’re told is true; they’re reduced, not simply to silence, but to open avowal of falsehood. They live by lies.
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