Paul Goble, originally on Window on Eurasia

Staunton, April 25 – At the dawn of the 20^th century, Vladimir Lenin wrote that “a newspaper is not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator; it is also a collective organizer.”  Now, in the 21^st, Vladimir Putin has updated this Bolshevik principle by having Moscow TV play the same role with the Russian speakers in the former Soviet republics.

Increasingly, Moscow television presents an alternative Orwellian world in which black is white and freedom is slavery, one in which governments that stand up to Moscow are CIA-backed “juntas” and those who employ violence against them are peaceful demonstrators defending their right to national self-determination.