HOW DO YOU SLAY A DRAGON?

The state’s expansion in this area wasn’t just restricted to the classic media. The growth of the Internet saw the state’s agents move in there, too. A vital border was crossed here when they seized control of the largest social media site in Russia, VKontaktye . Along with this, massive budgetary funds are pumped into various Internet projects through numerous intermediary contractors. Despite the widespread view that much of the Russian part of the Internet opposes the regime, the state is actually the dominant player here, too.

What’s even more important, though, is not the quantity  of channels but the quality . It’s not which part of the information sphere belong to the state that really matters, but how it uses it. As a result of the endless efforts the Kremlin has put in over many years, it now dominates the flow of information. Its very aggressive method of pushing out a constant flood of information is like a permanent information war.

This dominant information flow is generated from the Kremlin, and its driving force is the network of obscure Kremlin agents who run specific information resources, often many different ones at once. This is an extremely complicated system, that includes a diverse and decentralised network of think tanks – analytical factories churning out a flow of ideas. It has its own numerous and mostly outsourced production facilities, its own “stars” and its own “cannon fodder”. This system is much more fine-tuned and sophisticated than the coercive repressive bloc, which is not surprising; until recently, it played a key role in stabilizing the regime.

It was this powerful state-controlled information flow that allowed the regime to keep a weak and limited alternative information stream nearby on the reservation, the noise of which was almost inaudible to the masses, since it was drowned out by the roar of the main flow. At the same time, while allowing glasnost to play around in the information sandpit, the regime kept strict control over the doses of information it permitted in the “market-place”, verifying how much was allowed as if it were using a chemist’s scales. This means that it has to have indirect control over the opposition media, and this control has been steadily increasing. Any attempt to break out of the “sandpit” led to rows and the opposition being roughly forced back into line.

But any complicated system is rather brittle. What works on small scale protests starts to shudder and crash on large ones. With ever increasing political loads on the system, it becomes more and more difficult to generate the flow they need. What’s more, the interference created by alternative information currents that are confined to the reservation, is becoming more obvious and more dangerous for the system. As a result, they’ve had to amend the system and make the dominant flow full-on. This signified the end of the era of truncated, post-modern glasnost and a return to the full and simple Soviet method.

By its very nature, glasnost is very vulnerable. It’s a secondary device and is derived from the authorities themselves. Starting in 1999 – that is, throughout the whole period of post-Communist reaction – we’ve been witnessing the regime’s attack on glasnost by limiting the space available to it, both directly and indirectly. All the time there was a genuine threat of a complete clampdown on glasnost, and when the regime decided to carry this out, no one and nothing could stop it. It’s another matter that this brings unpleasant and irreversible consequences not only for society, but also for the regime itself. It will not only slow it down, but it’ll hasten its end.

Well, you might say, to hell with them, let them screw things down as mush as they want! But the important thing is not just when the regime will collapse, but what will take its place. This is why, of course, the defence of any kind of glasnost has a huge significance for the democratic movement.

No matter how illusory truth shut up in a reservation may be, it’s better than a lie that’s wandering around freely. We must fight for every word of truth; we must do battle against any attempt by the regime to get rid of glasnost once and for all; we have to do all we possibly can to help journalists and publications that heroically continue to stand up to totalitarianism, even if now most of them are doing this from abroad. But this shouldn’t be our strategic goal. We shouldn’t be aiming to fully restore glasnost, but to create rock-solid constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech.