The first thing the Bolsheviks did, after seizing power in Russia, was the building of an information concentration camp. Lenin’s decree outlawing the freedom of the press was the first step in the direction of establishing a rigid totalitarian system of censorship. It was adopted even before the ones organizing the Cheka, nullifying estates, civil ranks, and banning all the other political parties that the Bolsheviks regarded as their number-one enemy.
Vladimir Putin, as President of the Russian Federation, began by taking a series of coordinated measures aimed at destroying the local independent media. He formally took office on May 7, 2000, and on May 11 the Media Most headquarters was raided by balaclava-wearing spetsnaz men. That was his fourth day in office and he couldn’t have done it any earlier, what with the Soviet Victory Day (May 9) – he still cared about public opinion.
One of the first documents he signed during his first presidential term was the Doctrine of Information Security, dated September 9, 2000. It had all the guidelines that would be implemented over the years, including the prevalence of the government-run channels. Among what was formulated as threats to national security was the concept of information warfare: “…the aspirations of a number of countries to infringe upon Russia’s interests and dominate in the global sphere of information, along with forcing Russia out of domestic and international information markets.”
At the time, I held the post of Secretary General of the Journalists’ Union of Russia. I could talk to the men at the head of certain government agencies, and I asked them who they thought could have infringed all this upon Russia and dominated it. None of them had answers to my questions that could satisfy me.
The Bolshevik “Decree on the Press” reads loud and clear. The “bourgeois press” is an enemy of the state that must be destroyed, period. The Bolshevik leaders were frank among themselves: we’re lying to the masses and will keep doing so. There is a copy of a message Cheka chiefs Jozef Unszlicht and Roman Pillar sent to Stalin’s Politburo, dated December 22, 1922. It starts with “Re: Disinformation” and suggests the establishment of a special section/department tasked with “preparing and disseminating important disinformation,” along with “a number of newspaper articles and features laying the foundations for the spreading of further false information.” Here all the “i’s” are dotted and “t’s” crossed. Stalin wrote on top “No objections.” Leon Trotsky wrote: “... subject to condition that Comrade Unszlicht keeps it under personal supervision and is held personally responsible...” Aleksei Rykov wrote: “…this may well lead our press and our Party and Soviet circles astray…” Vyacheslav Molotov wrote: “…no objections provided the three persons responsible are accepted by the Politburo…” Historians know what happened to Rykov after voicing his doubts about official falsehood.
Now, 99 years after the Bolshevik “Decree on the Press,” we are inmates of a new information concentration camp. We read and hear about new decrees that are formulated differently, using the current ambiguous, misleading officialese. The original decree was absolutely clear, having three clauses. Putin’s information doctrine has 38 clauses/articles and some of them are twice the size of the Bolshevik decree.
If one compares the text of Putin’s doctrine, adopted back in 2000, to that of his Ukase No. 646 (December 5, 2016), the impression is that Russia’s political leadership and clandestine agencies have been playing into the enemy’s hands over the past 16 years. During this period, the threats to national security have allegedly been on a high upward curve and the enemy has, allegedly, come dangerously close, ready to leap and claw at Mother-Russia’s throat.
The latest doctrine reads: “There is an increased information impact on Russia’s citizens, first of all young people, with the goal of washing out traditional Russian moral and spiritual values.” I wonder what is the world, what kind of reality the authors of this text think they’re living? There is a part of Russia’s population who are watching the federal channels with their Kiselyov-Seleznyov [official propaganda] talk shows, along with TV serials. Most of the younger generation prefer funny video clips they find on the Internet. They want to watch and hear pop songs, visit chats, and play kill-the-monster online games. The absolute majority of young Russians would be baffled to learn about all those “traditional Russian moral and spiritual values.” If asked to respond, some would request “material aid” and others would be likely to comment, using four-letter words.
Vladimir Putin’s latest doctrine sets the task of neutralizing the [West’s] “information effect” aimed at “washing out traditional Russian moral and spiritual values.” The consequences of this neutralization are easy to see. They will start by closing down a couple more small independent media, websites, NGOs, throwing behind bars a couple more bloggers, but mostly by stuffing their pockets with federal bank appropriations for protecting the Fatherland against the treacherous information enemy.
Indeed, Russia “has risen from its knees” over the years since the first information security doctrine. It is now in a position to seize foreign territories, send its troops and aircraft abroad, rattling the saber of its rusty yet lethal nuclear arsenal. Its government-run channels are disseminating fake information, and its new doctrine expectedly focuses on Russia’s concern over the planet’s information security.
This “concern” is expressed in the doctrine as follows: “Expanding the scale of the use of special services of certain states of information and psychological impacts, aimed at destabilizing the political and social situation in various regions of the world, resulting in the undermining of the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of other states. This activity involved the religious, ethnic, human rights and other organizations, including the public, and structure, as well as individual groups of citizens.”
Apparently to save the planet, more funds will be made available courtesy of Margarita Simonyan, Yevgeniy Kiselyov, et al., who were clearly involved in the lobbying for the draft doctrine [in the Russian parliament]. As a result, these “well-wishing” ladies and gentlemen will come in possession of another several billion federal rubles. The big question remains: Do they deserve this? The world keeps evolving and now many people can see what threats are real, especially the disinformation threat being posed by Russia.
The European Parliament’s resolution to combat Russia’s “disinformation” and “hostile propaganda” was a preemptive tactic against what would materialize as Vladimir Putin’s new information security doctrine. There is an increasing number of Russian generals and other commanding officers involved in that country’s information warfare who are banned entry to the civilized countries. Hopefully, the time will come when all of Russia’s government-run channels or affiliated media are recognized as acting contrary to international law, with all staff being placed on the international blacklists.
Russia’s new information security doctrine implies a new, maximum security, mode for its information concentration camp, just as it implies this mode for the rest of the world, even if ideally. Whereas the rest of the world remains an idea, quite a few Russians appear to have accepted this maximum security mode with “profound gratification” [Leonid Brezhnev’s pet phrase. – Ed.].
