Late Soviet Period Was the Time of the Official Bullshit

Obviously, politicians and other “communicators” of all epochs have appealed to bullshit in times of need, but rarely had the regime been running solely on BS as much as did the Brezhnevites.

Nothing was left of Marxism and Leninism. Nothing was left even of Stalinism, cruel as it was, at least it had clear goals and its brutal means of achieving it.

But what we had under Brezhnev was pure unadulterated BS. About the goals, means, heroes, enemies. Not necessarily lies, but BS: irrelevant information meant to obfuscate and distract.

Politicians were mumbling their claptrap from podiums and screens, Pravda and Izvestia had their printed matter, Komsomol was bullshitting to the youngsters, Party — to the old, red-tied pioneers bullshitted to the children.

I thought I’ve left it all behind, when I boarded this plane in Sheremetevo in 1979. Here I come, ready to meet the artists of integrity, honest politicians, disinterested scholarship, vigorous journalism.

Not so fast, say, BBC and NYT. It is simply better wrapped BS. That’s what we do so well in the west. Better cuts, better styles, better editing, better packaging.

Reluctant as I was to trust Noam Chomsky or other western dissidents, whom I viewed as naive idealists on the occasional payroll from the Soviets, I began to recognize that they were quite correct. Western media and establishment were very good at manufacturing consent. So good that the consent didn’t smell like bullshit. It was the French who perfected the art of perfume, after all.

Fine, I think, screw the NYT, BBC, big mouths at FOX, and what have you, there is a community of facebookers, people of integrity who want to live in real, rather than imaginary world. The ones who are tired of the same old BS, sloppy and over the top in case of Soviets, and sophisticated and unobtrusive in case of their Cold War rivals.

And it was good for a while. It was exhilarating and encouraging to encounter people with similar attitudes, values, intellectual acumen, curiosity, and restlessness, dispersed all over the globe.

I imagine early pioneers of rock music, or cinema or even computers — were like that. Excited about the discovery of something new and human, rather than commercial and fake.

But alas, it didn’t last. Soon Brezhnevism hit the fan. Facebook had been hijacked in the manner of any other revolutionary activity, giving way to conformity and materialism.

What do I see now when I open a page? Not the posting of my friends, irritating and myopic as they can be in their blind zeal to embrace the alternative news mantras, which are not always different from the mainstream baloney. Not do I even get the mainstream propaganda, occasional references to Masha Gessen or Anne Applebaum notwithstanding.

No! What I get — with the ration of ten to one, are advertisement concerning the maintenance of old houses and old bodies, the pictures of dogs, the idiotic influencers, many of whom write in Russian and try to explain to me the beauties of Russian landscape or Russian literature and other obvious things, and occasional ramblings of antisemites and paranoid conspiracy theorists. Nothing public can obviously function without those.

And yes, there are about thirty friends — out of thousands of friends and followers whose comments I read when I post something, but whose own writings the FB algorithm prefers to hide from me. That’s about it.

Do I really have to abandon any hope for communication with strangers and retreat into the privacy of one’s kitchen and a couple of buddies with whom one shares vodka and jokes? That’s what I tried to cast behind, when I left Russia. Now it caught up with me with the vengeance.

So let me express the gratitude to the few friends who’ve asked me how am I doing and why am I silent. Unfortunately, it is hard to do something creative, when feeling physical disgust and nausea. And that’s what FB had become. A pompous, self-righteous, and nauseatingly obnoxious algorithm, that does not care about anything except quickly disappearing profits.

In the meantime, hey, dear Pravda and Izvestia and other dwellers of the dustbin of history. Welcome your new cell-mates: FB, its brave new content-creators and their master, Mr. Algorithm.