The Making of Gorbachev’s Strategic Thought Part 3: The Recurrence of Propaganda Today
- Lauren Duffy
- Mar 9, 2020
- 3 min read
Previously, we examined the factors likely contributing to the development of Gorbachev’s political philosophy that led to his strategic approach as the last Soviet Union leader. In the final blog on this topic, we will be looking at how the lessons learned from the progression of leadership strategies in the USSR are still just as relevant in today’s political climate and how we are seeing the recurrence of old issues in a modern context.
From the birth of the Soviet Union to its downfall and subsequent destruction, we saw a progression of leadership styles mature from a traditional authoritarian and forceful nature to an open minded, liberal and agreeable approach. Today, the traditional leadership qualities that early predecessors possessed are not accepted as successful leadership traits. Trait theory assumes leaders all have similar traits and while desirable traits of leaders depend largely on the task or duty of which they are to lead, integrity and good ethical values are widely embraced as desirable traits for all successful leaders. Gorbachev showed evidence of possessing these traits when he, in an attempt to reform, led the party into the unknown. Today, Britain exemplify similar uncertainty under a global microscope in preparation for leaving the EU and the need for a great leader to direct the public into the unknown state of Brexit is especially salient. Does Boris Johnson possess the desired traits essential for the country’s political aspirations? When it comes to the most basic characteristics of integrity, honesty and a strong ethical mindset, he scores poorly. Johnson has consistently exhibited dishonesty in his approach throughout the Brexit agenda. He has been attributed to the false claim that stated the EU spent £350 million a week to remain in the EU. He has been criticized by several bodies who claim the effect of Brexit will likely result in national medical shortages, including cancer treatments, and a rise in deaths related to both alcoholism and suicide. It is claimed that the government have not completed an impact assessment report for the case of Brexit, and that information about potentially disastrous consequences is being withheld by government.
The sense of familiarity of the actions of leading party officials is incontestable. Have we gone backwards in terms of the lessons learned from history about the desired leader? The leading ‘Brexiteers’ guiding the UK into such an uncertain future exhibit the same secrecy and misuse of information as the propaganda spreading during the Soviet Union era. Contrastingly to this era, today’s modern information systems are so sophisticated that we have access to an abundance of information. But while this pertains to a positive direction of public information, there also exists an abundance of information concerning us including our browsing habits, associated interests, probable political views and other personal data. The modern form of propaganda has become the analysis of our persona data and the manipulation of information to paint a personalized misrepresentation of information to the public. This was the method used in the Brexit campaign and has been attributed to much of its success. With the assistance of the disgraced Cambridge Analytica, data profiles of voters were developed to target each type of voter with biased information intending to push them in the direction of the leave voters.
The corruptive issues present in the leading of the Soviet Union are a recurring theme in the global political climate today. The great access to information that Gorbachev fought hard for is now being unethically exploited by leaders and we, the unsuspecting public, are the victims of its deception. The need for restoration of public rights and a reform of the use of information systems is once again required. As long as leaders with such deceptive tendencies are appointed, the need to unwire the manipulation of information spreading will be a recurring issue.
This post concludes our team's blog on the the relationship between Mikhail Gorbachev and the use of information systems in his political strategies. We gained a huge insight into the intrinsic relevance of information systems for leadership strategies throughout the making of this blog and we hope our followers enjoyed reading our perspective on this topic.
For more information on the use of propaganda in today's environment, see the following links:
Very interesting piece, Lauren! I like your slant on how targeted advertising is a modern form of propaganda. Although there has been a push-back against the non-consensual harvesting of people's personal data with the advent of GDPR, it seems that in many cases users are clicking 'accept' to cookie consent messages on websites without even reading what data they are asking your consent for. Perhaps this points to the larger issue of the users' privacy being the cost of getting improved and tailored services.