Thursday, September 24, 2015

Psychological Context of Russian Political Control



Those following Russia won't find this entirely surprising in general but I've not found it more succinctly stated: 

The creation of a virtually omniscient Kremlin may be less about enforcing active control of the social, political and economic space in Russia than it is about encouraging Russians in all walks of life to control and censor themselves.

It is not simply that there is no place for Russians to hide. Without clarity about where the red lines are for political and even economic behaviour, there is no way to hedge. One cannot carefully walk on the knife’s edge, when that edge itself is kept purposefully obscure.