Russia: The Engineering of Consent

The Soviet dictatorship goes to a lot of trouble to show the world, its subjects and itself that it is running a democratic state. High point in the Bolshevik show of consulting the people is the year-end gathering in Moscow of a thousand-odd poets, party hacks, dairy maids and Siberian sheepherders for the session of the Supreme Soviet. At this congress of jabber and gabble, the duly elected delegates of the people hear reports on the state of the union, utter a few carefully stage-managed criticisms of same, and then, in a mockery of the ancient parliamentary power of the...

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