Humanity emerges and grows only with systems that are capable of influencing mass consciousness. Humanity is what is in the head, not around us. It has always united either for attack or defense, having similar tasks of survival. For this, a common mental platform is always created in the heads, allowing one to feel one's unity as closer than any other. "We" must always be stronger than "I", so that the collective version is ahead of the individual in thoughts, words and actions. This is the dream not of the individual, but of the society in which he lives.
One model of the world is more effective, especially in war conditions. Such common mental platforms are created both naturally and artificially, they are important because they allow the mechanisms of mass consciousness to become more uniform in their reactions. School, media, cinema, literature "stamp out" uniform behavior matrices. Correct behavior is emphasized, incorrect behavior is condemned. A clear choice remains for everyone.
A common basis is important for decision-making. Then everyone comes to a single decision, which in principle creates a "community" from heterogeneous components. Let us recall, for example, the poisoning of Yushchenko as a variant of such a "matrix" impact on mass consciousness during the election campaign. This is a similar example of creating a single point of reference and defining a potential enemy. As a result, people increase their closeness to their supporters and their rejection of their enemies, conditional or real.
In principle, all three spaces work to create such common mental platforms of different levels: physical, informational and virtual. All this facilitates further existence and interaction. Soviet demonstrations of workers were living embodiments of such mental platforms. They carried slogans like "the people and the party are one", so everything entered the brain consciously and unconsciously. "The party is our helmsman" - also from there...
Cinema is interesting because it creates such mental platforms that shape future behavior, also through funding from those who buy the tickets. This happens because the "information" in it is introduced within the framework of a virtual space that creates an entertainment context. A textbook plays a similar role, forcing a person to study it for the sake of getting a grade, but at the same time creating a need to remember the truths being promoted. In these two examples, the information needed by the state is "built into" what is needed or of interest to the person.
Yu. Khazagaeva, for example, analyzes a similar matrix in Soviet cinema. She says: "I looked at Soviet cinema as a mirror in which society looks. Let's take the most popular films: "Kidnapping, Caucasian Style," "Mimino," "White Sun of the Desert." In general, the matrix is as follows. There are positive heroes, rational, kind, romantic, who bring civilization. And they always come from Moscow. They are always people who belong to the Russian people. And there are wild, primitive heroes, suffering from the remnants of the past, who follow some strange ancient traditions, incomprehensible and uncivilized. The Russian always has a mission of savior in relation to "semi-wild peoples." This line can be traced throughout Soviet cinema" (quoted from [1]).
She is asked about the characters in Danelia's film "Mimino", where the heroes are not Russian, but charming. The answer is as follows:
"Yes, but look at the comical role they play. And they are essentially making fun of each other. For some reason, the object of this humor is pronunciation, the Georgian accent with which Vakhtang Kikabidze's character says: "I want Larisa Ivanovna!" Everyone then picked it up. On the other hand, the Russian characters, in the person of the same airplane crew and the same Larisa Ivanovna (the flight attendant), they are not supposed to be of primary importance, but they have a touch of the elite. That is, they descend in snow-white clothes from this snow-white liner. They bring civilization. And Mimino and his Armenian friend, they still belong to the "wild" Caucasus, exotic, nice, but still uncivilized" (ibid.).
At the same time, she emphasizes the universal nature of this approach: "this vision of the culture of another in cinema is not a typical feature of only Soviet or Russian cinema. Colonial thinking was characteristic of American cinema, and British, and French. I would say that racist motives are generally built into us, into human nature, like a factory setting. That is, we have been going with this since primitive times. But if we are talking about Soviet cinema, then here it is like a "natural" narrative, which has not gone away anywhere. In the USSR, it was impossible to make a different kind of film. You couldn't come to Mosfilm and offer, say, a film based on Ukrainian locations, with a plot that tells about self-awareness" (ibid.).
As a result, cinema becomes not a mirror, but a poster of the necessary model of reality, to which the viewer will voluntarily or involuntarily adapt. We all love cinema, for this reason we become "everyone", possessing uniform reactions and uniform behavior.
By the way, Yu. Khazagaeva emigrated after the war began. She says: "I clearly understand that I am working on the side of evil. Since February 24, all information resources in Russia can work legally only to support the war. If before I perceived compromises in my work as an inevitable evil that is always present in life. Then with the beginning of the war they acquire a completely different price. This price is human life" [2].
Any communication builds a common body of knowledge, which our behavior is based on. Often propaganda even hides its sources, since it is more concerned with results. This happened with post-war Soviet propaganda, which borrowed heavily from its enemy. Researchers state: "Soviet propaganda changed immediately after World War II. Just as the Bolsheviks adopted the visual language of their enemies, using religious iconography, post-war propaganda adopted the stylization of Nazi Germany, their most reviled enemy. Physical ideals, ostentatiously raised in hyper-stylized National Socialist (Nazi) realism, became the model for subsequent Soviet propaganda" [3].
This article has an interesting epigraph - "The fundamental problem the Bolsheviks faced in 1917 was not simply the seizure of power, but the seizure of meaning." These are the words of V. Bonner (Victoria E. Bonnell), who began her book with these words - Iconography of Power: Soviet Political Posters Under Lenin and Stalin [4].
This is an interesting and correct observation, since the basis of everything is meaning, from which our thoughts and actions come on the next turn. Propaganda creates a kind of mental multiplication table. Moreover, childhood is the best time, since the picture of the world at this moment is not formed. Mayakovsky wrote "A little son came to his father and asked the little one: - What is good and what is bad?"
Since childhood we are taught to march in formation: both physical and mental. And this is the law of survival, since no one likes those who stand out. Mass propaganda, as well as religion, by the way, makes people the same in terms of fighting against diversity of behavior. And it is always better to be "one of us" than "another". All the time there is an ideal next to a person, which he can and should focus on. Sometimes these ideals are formalized in clear rules known to everyone, like "a pioneer is an example for all the guys". There is also a song "Communists Forward"... It was sung by L. Leshchenko... There are such words:
Everywhere where the lead lines cross
Or where great works are in full swing,
Through the ages, for centuries, until the end:
"Communists, forward! Communists, forward! Communists, forward!"
That is, the picture of the world was built by songs, and cinema, and literature... That is, the entire virtual space is built on a single picture of the world. There will always be a place for an enemy that must be defeated.
Propaganda was powerful because it was so massive. It created a kind of "mental fence" that separated correct behavior from incorrect. Punishment is given for one behavior, praise for another. Propaganda should bring our behavior to automatism.
Modern post-propaganda does not have such a mass impact as the old propaganda. It acts in separate "streams", and not in a giant "river". But this turns out to be no less "deceptive" technology. It creates a feeling that this is not an idea imposed on us, but our own, and the status of such an idea is immeasurably higher. It's just that the old unified propaganda "multiplied" into thousands of small streams of social media, where everyone can find their own "pros" and "cons", but the result will still be the one needed by the "big" propaganda.
For example, I was surprised to see such articles in the Russian segment of the Internet. A story about childhood TV series - not a single one that was not Western [5]. And this is a clear failure. Or the State Duma speaker asks to extradite Chubais to Russia [6]. And how many "prayed" for him... That is, reality can make its own adjustments to propaganda, no matter how massive it is. At times, propaganda can be "dead", but reality - never...
We are still waiting for many "wonderful discoveries" due to the growing influence of social networks. Now in a number of countries elections were held, where TikTok suddenly played a decisive role. These are, for example, Romania and Slovakia. And the countries were not ready for this: "Waves of popularity of social networks have a huge impact on elections, especially in countries with unstable democracies. For example, the victory of democratic candidate Zuzana Čaputová in Slovakia became possible, according to some local experts, because more than three quarters of the country's residents were then active Facebook users. Those who understood this - won, and many politicians of the old school, as they say, went out of circulation. And while the popularity of old social media is declining, they are being replaced by new ones, for example, the Chinese video service TikTok , the work of which has long been restricted in the United States. In Romania, as it turns out, it turned out to be very popular, and it seems that the first to understand the significance of these changes were Russian political strategists who wanted to help the scandalist and radical, a supporter of ending aid to Ukraine, Calin Georgescu. According to the Information Service, the Foreign Intelligence Service and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Romania, the hand of the Kremlin is clearly visible, including in the fact that on the eve of the first round of elections, the activity of 25 thousand accounts sharply increased. In Russia, as is well known, the authorities are attentive to cooperation with TikTok and other social networks where possible - they are even ready to pay. For example, the Institute for Internet Development, headed by former Kremlin administration employee Alexei Goreslavsky, is responsible for this. In Romania, according to the intelligence services, a similar role was played by TikTok user Bogdan Peshkir. He also "cooperated" for about 1 million euros, which led to a violation of TIkTok's policy on equal coverage of elections and Romanian electoral law. In addition, Romanian bloggers were offered 1,000 euros for posting one video in support of Georgescu. And finally, "leaders of some clans of the criminal world and extremists could have been involved in his campaign." Georgescu responded by stating that he was not familiar with the people involved in the intelligence services' investigation" [7].
Propaganda not only beats old enemies, but also actively creates new ones. This is what happened with the former idol Y. Shevchuk. He directly and indirectly spoke out against the SVO. And the reaction of the authorities was immediately evident: "in a number of cities - Orenburg, Kurgan, Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk and others - concerts of the group "DDT" were cancelled: the singer flatly refused to perform in the hall, which was decorated with the patriotic letter "Z". Apparently, this finally affected the rocker. He transferred his anger to paper - this is how new "masterpieces" were born: in his songs, he compared Russia to a drug addict, called on people not to "go crazy and finish SVO". He also insulted our soldiers who shed blood on the battlefield every day, defending the interests of Russia. - I listen to the news ... blessed expired conscripts ... Having called themselves the Motherland, these zeros indifferently steal the time of our land ... I suggest that all those who were going to be born, climb back in! - Shevchuk said. Since last year, he has been sitting in Europe, touring for foreign listeners. Calling himself free, unlike the Russians, who have in "a bunch of prohibitions and tyranny" in his country" [8].
War is stronger than man. But man often turns out to be stronger than war. And this is not so much a propaganda blunder as the strength of man himself, who does not always want to be an "automaton".
We live in an ever-changing world. Egor Firsov discusses the change in the type of army that Ukraine finds itself in: "Another important problem is communication and psychological. The Soviet army model of "I'm the boss, you're a fool" does not work today. These are not the right times, not the right people. Today, everything should be built on incentives. And this is not just fashionable rhetoric - this efficiency factor is dictated by the reality of the new war. It's one thing when you are a platoon commander and your soldiers need to dig a trench. Here everything is clear - if the process does not go, then you can shout, swear, and they will gradually pick at it. Now imagine that you are a platoon commander whose task is to set up drones to lower frequencies so that they fly past enemy electronic warfare. To do this, you need to find the necessary modules somewhere, unsolder the old ones, solder in the new ones, and most importantly - know where, how and where. And here, if there is no normal communication with the soldiers, even if you shout, even swear - the personnel will only close in themselves, and there will be no result. And there are few specialists. They acquire relevant skills in combat conditions, so replacing someone is simply unrealistic. As a result, the minimum is lost time; the maximum is failure of a combat mission and human lives" [9].
We are the children of our propaganda. Every nation is like that. Countries unite with each other based on common propaganda, from where they take both common enemies and common friends. And the most important question is - is propaganda good or bad? And we ourselves, every reader or viewer, will have to decide this. "When a rebellion ends in success, it is usually called something else..." This is the 17th century English poet John Harrington...
Today, Russia is wriggling out of this by playing with words. S. Lavrov in an interview with T. Carlson states: "We did not start the war. Russian President V.V. Putin has repeatedly said that we started a special military operation to put an end to the war that the Kiev regime was waging against its own people in Donbass" [10]. Although the whole world thinks the opposite...
Literature
1. Filimonov A. et al. Colonial Cinema. How Soviet Cinema Strengthened the Empire and Instilled National Stereotypes https://www.sibreal.org/a/kolonialnoe-kino-kak-sovetskiy-kinematograf-ukreplyal-imperiyu-i-nasazhdal-natsionalnye-stereotipy/33223801.html
2. Khazagaeva Yu. I clearly understood that I was working on the side of evil https://ochevidcy.com/yukia-hazagaeva/
3. Boylston S. Visual propaganda in Soviet Russia. A Study of Soviet Propaganda https://www.academia.edu/6387163/A_Study_of_Soviet_Propaganda
4. Bonnell VE Iconography of Power: Soviet Political Posters Under Lenin and Stalin. - Berkeley etc., 1997
5. Zaitsev A. 12 series of my childhood https://www.cybersport.ru/blog/series/12-serialov-moego-detstva
6. The State Duma Speaker proposed to extradite Chubais to Russia https://octagon.media/politika/spiker_gosdumy_predlozhil_ekstradirovat_chubajsa_v_rossiyu.html
7. Preobrazhensky I. Russian influence in Romania: if not control, then chaos https://www.dw.com/ru/kommentarij-rossijskoe-vlianie-v-rumynii-esli-ne-kontrol-to-haos/a-70989150
8. Chuichenko V. A stab in the back: what happened to yesterday's patriot Yuri Shevchuk? https://ug.tsargrad.tv/articles/udar-v-spinu-chto-stalo-so-vcherashnim-patriotom-juriem-shevchukom_975848
9. Firsov E. About the problem at the front, which no army in the world has faced https://nv.ua/opinion/voyna-dronov-v-ukraine-voennyy-rasskazal-o-potrebnostyah-vsu-50472819.html
10. Interview of Russian Foreign Minister S.V. Lavrov to American observer T. Carlson, Moscow, December 6, 2024 https://www.mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/news/1985783/