cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/5649906
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/china-cold-war-2669160202/
Nice to see your hard earned tax dollars are going towards such a fabulous cause. Meanwhile I’ve heard it said that Chinese and Russian bots exploit divisions in the Western world by talking about things like poverty, homelessness, gun violence, racism and sexism. Well maybe you should start doing something about those issues to stop them being used as fuel for alleged foreign propaganda efforts hmmm?
Zhdanov was probably the only USSR official after Lenin that realized the importance of mass media, role culture plays in class war on global scale and the fact socialism is under constant and relentless attack from capitalists powers via its extensive propaganda apparatus disguised in myriad ways. He devised the doctrine (called “Zhdanov Docrine”) to counteract this, but it wasn’t implemented.
History vindicated him because it is precisely this cultural and propaganda invasion that was one of main reasons socialism was destroyed in Europe and almost destroyed everywhere else and the attempts did not ceased for even a moment. DPRK cultural politics and things like Chinese great firewall are similar policies, not only sorely needed but China (as the only country in position to do so) need to also go on the offensive.
China most likely won’t and it’s one of the more frustrating things about them. They actually have better soft power than the USSR did but will continue not to go on the propaganda offensive while the US relentlessly attacks their ally’s and China’s credibility.
Yeah, for example, westerners are constantly whining how Tencent, the biggest game making conglomerate in the world, is supposedly “CPC propaganda”, but they still play in their games. Golden opportunity just lying there on a silver platter, cmon China, do it!
Yakovlev taking over the glasnost media and immediately putting anti-communists in every position of power is a big reason why we don’t have the USSR anymore, IMO. Just to further your point about Zdhanov.