Totalitarian Governments’ Psychological Manipulation Throughout History
by This essay scratches the surface on our corrupt passed, focusing on three major totalitarian countries, including Nazi Germany while Hitler was in power, to when Joseph Stalin ruled Russia; to our present day with communist China. It briefly examines the dictators’ techniques in psychologically manipulating their own citizens through censorship, propaganda and surveillance.
Finally, in Stalinist Russia, Stalin used terror as a manipulation tool for controlling his own country’s citizens, threatening them through the media and presence of the NKVD in the society, which was watching what citizens were doing. Journalists and reporters were ordered to warn Soviet citizens that the NKVD–which was Russia’s secret service during Stalin’s time–is always watching, “[Denouncing] or the possibility even by one’s own children plus the suspicion that devices such as radios could listen as well as transmit through wired speakers were daily reminders of the possibility of terror visiting a family, a neighbour, a friend,” (“Propaganda in the Propaganda State”). So here, Stalin used the force of terror in the media to present people with fear too. The fact that radios could filter audible information to the government was just one of the lies Stalin made; these and other lies were exaggerated in order to manipulate citizens’ minds in preventing the spread of illegal information, such as spreading rumours on the Ukrainian famine. This terror could not be controlled at sometimes though, which is where the NKVD would step in: “The very irrationality, unpredictability, and illogic of arrests, beatings, executions and exile made people feel the terror pervasively. State violence defined the Stalinist State,” (“Propaganda in the Propaganda State”). In a way, not only were the citizens informed on a surveillance system that watched over constantly, but fear was what became created after all the repetitive reports of threats. Even though there was no such thing as such secret surveillance system besides the NKVD, the fact that the Soviet citizens thought they were watched created hear, which is what refrained them from freedom of speech, and even thought.
Conclusion
As discussed, totalitarian governments have greatly abused their power in using psychological manipulation techniques over their citizens in order to form the type of country that they want. They have used a great deal of censorship, censoring information they don’t want their citizens to know about, propaganda, making their country blindly believe in lies, and with surveillance, monitoring citizens to obey the law, and catch those who present a possible threat to the government. This could make one think of the possibility citizens in Canada and in the United States are being psychologically manipulated today secretly and unconsciously. Because of the increasingly rapid advance in technology over the years, one would believe that North American citizens are being brainwashed and/or monitored so cleverly that citizens don’t even realize it happening right now.
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