Quote:
Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague
It's still completely different from North Korea. It's closer to China - or rather, I suspect Putin's government would like to be comparable China in this arena, but they're not competent or well-organized enough to exert that level of control over informational access.
Information control is one way that Russian people are kept in line, but the reality is that they keep themselves in line for the most part, such that public opinion can in fact turn quite dramatically if the status quo is disrupted (e.g. through severe economic sanctions) and the impact of that public opinion is a real threat to Putin. Xi has considerably less to worry about on that front, and Kim Jong Un has essentially nothing to worry about.
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I have been watching France 24s coverage a lot during this crisis and today they had a bit about Stalin nostalgia in Russia and showed examples of new statues and Stalin museums going up. They interviewed some people about what they thought and some of the answers I think demonstrate how it doesn't matter what information is readily available. One lady said she approved of the Stalin statue, and when asked about the bad things Stalin did, her reaction wasn't denial. She said that if you think about the negative things, you will feel negative, so it's better to not think about those things. Another man, whose grandfather was killed by Stalin said that it was OK and put the blame on the local authorities following orders, and not on Stalin. Everybody they asked seems OK with recent images of Stalin being put up in places.
So it wasn't even that they are not aware of the bad things, they just think they are excusable or not worth considering.
Small sample size of course, so I don't know if this means that much, just thought it was interesting.