Samizdat

by Armando Simón

Beginning in the late 1960s, dissidents were able to negate to some degree the all-pervasive censorship that existed in the Soviet Union through a process that became known as samizdat. It entailed the tedious copying of written works, using typewriters and carbon paper since imported Xerox machines required permission to use and they were owned by the government bureaucracies. The recipient would then type a copy to pass on to others. Russian writers had secret compartments within their massive desks, which were easily dismantled by the KGB if the secret police suspected one of possessing politically incorrect materials.

The subject matter that was copied and passed on were rarely anti-government political tracts like Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984? (which at the time I thought was absurdly unrealistic and was subsequently proven wrong). Rather, the overwhelming material were works of literature and the occasional historical (The Gulag Archipelago) or scientific (The Rise and Fall of T. D. Lysenko) opus. Copying individual poems or even books of poetry like those of Ratushinskaya or Akhmatova was not tedious at all. However, gargantuan novels (The Master and Margarita, The First Circle, Dr. Zhivago, and the hilarious The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin) were a different matter since traditionally Russian novels are sold by the pound. The eyesight of quite a few Russian typists must have deteriorated.

But Russian literature survived.

It is now 2024 and the West has developed its own samizdat, relying on the internet as the means of disseminating material that has been deemed politically incorrect and must be censored out of existence by modern day Communists entrenched in both the media and the various government bureaucracies, as well as aiming to suppress political opponents in both Canada and America. Unlike the Soviet samizdat, the emphasis is on disseminating news and facts and viewpoints that are suppressed by the media hivemind, such as the toxicity of covid “vaccines,” opposition to the sexual mutilation of children, comedy, demands for elections devoid of fraud, etc. Works of fiction that cannot be published because of the censorship are ignored by the samizdat since most conservatives are too stupid to realize that fiction is more effective and enduring than the latest remark by Ben Shapiro, Ann Coulter or Tucker Carlson (for these conservatives every time they blink they think it’s a new day). The exception is New English Review where one can find the occasional short story.

Here are some of the samizdat venues in North America for the reader’s benefit:

The foremost sources of otherwise censored news are Breitbart and Daily Caller. Washington Examiner is a close third. The negative aspect of these sites for facts that are being kept from the public by the media hivemind is when you consult them regularly you realize how bad things really are. One is apt to stock up on firearms and ammunition and start making a list of targets. Other sites are Brownstone Institute, American Mind, PJ Media, Front Page Magazine, American Thinker, Issues & Insight, Human Events, American Wire News, Western Journal, BizPac Review, Atlantico Quotidiano, American Greatness, and the ever-caustic Takimag. Some have both news and opinion pieces while others have opinion pieces, but they cite information that is censored. Obviously, The Iconoclast is included among these. The American Spectator is first rate and has existed before the present crisis.

The Communists are constantly targeting these sites, sometimes by hacking them, sometimes by demonetizing them (I understand New English Review One America News, and Issues & Insights were approached by Google with the threat to censor or they would be monetized and/or their sites would not be listed; others have been outright demonetized; some are hanging on by a thread; we do not have the equivalent of a George Soros). European Communists are coercing internet sites to censor certain facts and opinions or they would be taken down, or, fined heavily.

As is well known, YouTube, Facebook, Google and other social media sites engage in censorship by their totalitarian staffs sometimes at the behest of the leftist government.

When the world wide web first came into being, it was heralded as the next step in freedom as everyone around the world could now access all sorts of information that was hitherto blocked from access (but easily hacked) or secreted away in overlooked niches. The persons who held such an idealistic view (or, if you prefer, Pollyanna) never dreamed that totalitarian censorship was around the corner and the world wide web would be targeted. Yet, here we are.

Armando Simón is originally from Cuba with degrees in history and psychology. He is the author of The Only Red Star I Liked Was a Starfish.