It was coined by Stephen Koch who named it after the Leninist propaganda machine of the 1920s.
In those days the vast Soviet clandestine network worked hard to recruit Westerners who could shape public opinion. They found their most natural allies in circles with a predisposition towards socialism. Intellectuals, film makers and movie stars, fashion designers and students of Ivy League schools were prime targets.
The idea was to manipulate people’s innermost desire to belong to the moral elite; and it was the decline of religion that facilitated pushing the battle between good and evil from the spiritual to the political arena. Whereas in the past people judged morality according to religious convictions, in the 1920s, thanks to Lenin and Stalin, opposing political ideologies were instead cast as good and evil.
This was one of the most successful propaganda devices ever, and people in the West bought into it by the millions. Many have come...
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