Opinion: Propaganda lobotomized Russians in 2015 How the Kremlin's manipulation of politics and public perceptions weakened the nation's minds

The mediasphere was one of Russia's most-discussed topics in 2015. As lawmakers accelerated the push to drive out foreign interests and saddle the news industry with more regulations, the political establishment also managed the remarkable swap of a war in Ukraine for an intervention in Syria. But the new year promises continued economic recession and parliamentary elections scheduled in September. In an opinion piece for the newspaper Vedomosti, editorial staff Andrei Sinitsyn, Pavel Aptekar, and Nikolai Epple argue that the authorities succeeded in “weakening Russians' minds” in 2015, but the trials ahead in 2016 could open new doors for badly needed political reforms. Meduza translates that text here.

Almost every day of Russia's political agenda in 2015 was set by military operations, terrorist attacks, and the course of the economic crisis. 

With a news cycle like this, every new bad thing that happened replaced the last bad thing. Psychologists say people get used to bad news; they don't learn to like it, but it ceases to provoke a strong emotional response. The bar just gets higher.

Who today remembers Malaysia Airlines Flight 17? The investigation of this catastrophe was one of the most important and visible topics of the year, with the Dutch Safety Board publishing its final report on October 13. 

Who remembers the battle for the Ukrainian city of Debaltseve? It lasted from January to February, and to this day there are still separatists from Donetsk and Luhansk in that city, along with Russian citizens "engaged in resolving certain issues in the military sphere," in Vladimir Putin's words.

On February 27, in plain view of the Kremlin, opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was shot in the most high-profile assassination of Russia's post-Soviet era.

The year also witnessed the Russian justice system set several new records, freeing corrupt officials and sending innocent people to prison for years on absurd charges. Once again, the government adopted and enforced new laws restricting the rights of its citizens. This year, deadly terrorist attacks returned to Russians, though Metrojet Flight 9268 never made it back to Russia, exploding over the Sinai in Egypt—a terrorist attack few people seem to talk about anymore, just as they've gone silent about the Paris attacks, though they occurred less than two months ago.

The average Russian consumer of information today remembers only that the country is at war in Syria, that Turkey shot down Russia's Sukhoi Su-24, and that Russians are obligated to respond with sanctions. 

And then, constantly in the background, is the recession. GDP is falling, as are average incomes. The Kremlin's hopes that oil prices would rebound quickly proved to be groundless. Russia's investment activity has bottomed out, and industry is stagnating. This truly troubling news raises serious issues for the state, which prefers not to discuss the matter. The weak attempt to resuscitate the economy by negatively motivating businesses and the people (the “import-substitution” mobilization) won't work. 

It's already become impossible to solve the crisis with economic measures alone; only large-scale political reforms can put Russia back on the right track. But this would require accepting a genuine competition for power, which is impossible for the Kremlin, because it sees both the state and the economy as rents to be distributed. The recession keeps reducing those rents, so the authorities are faced with dual tasks: distract the people from both the crisis and the increasingly less equitable distribution of rents. To achieve this, they turn to propaganda built on bad news. Citizens are asked to escalate the fight against Russia's enemies, both foreign and domestic. The war in Ukraine became a war in Syria. In their efforts to exploit the legacy of the USSR's victory in the Second World War, Russian officials went to unreasonable lengths with the 70th anniversary celebration, even legislating and then enforcing new laws protecting “the Victory.” (All that's left is to patent it.)

Trying to condition people with information like this doesn't work, unless you also weaken people's minds. And that is precisely what seems to be happening. This process is being helped along by a declining quality of education and cuts in spending on education. The mental decay extends to the highest echelons of power, too, as the logical consequence of officials rejecting expert opinion and competence, in favor of loyalty. 

In this situation, the people who rise to the top are the ones who are able to sell the same threats over and over. According to the official propaganda agenda, anything bad that happens, including economic news, is the result of foreign aggression and external influence on Russia.

And so the president faces a certain paradox: he needs to defend the members of his own elite, even the ones implicated in corruption and linked to the mafia. The Kremlin can't acknowledge the Anti-Corruption Foundation's investigation of the relatives and colleagues of Attorney General Yuri Chaika. Representatives of Russian civil society and Russian state officials can't even agree on basic facts, and denying facts and demonizing civil society are the only avenues left to the state today. 

But this doesn't mean that such activism is meaningless. On the contrary, public inquiries and other grassroots civic activism are the only way forward for society. The information being collected and published today will be useful in the future for the very same political reforms today's authorities are afraid to undertake.

The Kremlin has meticulously stripped independently-minded citizens of the chance to participate in politics through parties and elections. The Russian political system hasn't been about those institutions for a long time, but in 2016 it should become clear to the country that Russia won't find a way out of the crisis or end its fighting with the world, until it returns to the domestic agenda and turns from the Syrian campaign to Russia's roads and schools. Intoxicated for years now on wars of bombs and propaganda, Russians can return to the facts of life and the country's domestic policy needs. The door is open.