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When Marat Guelman asserts that propaganda no longer works, he means something far deeper than mere television fatigue or the exposure of individual fakes. In reality, we are witnessing the complete and irreversible collapse of an entire system built on decades of deceit. This process can no longer be stopped because we are observing not a technical glitch, but a tectonic shift in public consciousness that cracks the very foundation of the regime’s legitimacy.
Guelman explains that we are observing not simply a decline in propaganda's effectiveness, but its actual death as a mechanism for societal control. It has ceased performing its primary function—constructing a compelling and attractive worldview for the majority of the population. It has mutated from a subtle instrument of seduction into a crude, rusted tool of coercion that no longer hypnotizes, but merely irritates and repels.
At its inception twenty years ago, this system operated entirely differently. It sold people a tangible dream, offering the narrative of a great power rising from its knees. This idea found a genuine echo because it was backed by a real, tangible rise in living standards—even if that prosperity was fueled exclusively by high oil and gas prices.
Propaganda back then served as a soundtrack to an economic miracle. It told people what they wanted to hear and what they partially observed in their wallets, in new foreign cars on the streets, in vacation trips to Turkey or Egypt, and in a sense of stability so desperately lacking during the turbulent 1990s. Believing it was easy and even pleasant. It legitimized the unwritten social contract under which the population willingly traded political freedoms for steadily growing material well-being.
However, the situation has shifted radically. Guelman emphasizes that the primary catalyst for this shift was the full-scale war in Ukraine, which tore that old social contract to shreds and scattered it to the wind. The war exposed the vacuity of previous promises. It demonstrated that behind talk of greatness and stability lay merely a drive toward destruction, archaism, and international isolation. Instead of promised prosperity, the country received economic sanctions, mobilization, the humiliating exit of Western corporations, and an endless stream of coffins returning to the most remote corners of the nation.
Propaganda can no longer sell a dream because no dream remains; what existed proved to be a cheap illusion. Instead, it is forced to sell fear, hatred, and the suffocating feeling of a besieged fortress surrounded by enemies. This represents a fundamental pivot from the propaganda of hope to the propaganda of despair.
A model built purely on negative emotions cannot remain sustainable long-term:
Guelman highlights that modern Russian propaganda has become exceptionally primitive and hysterical. It no longer attempts subtlety or persuasion; it disregards arguments and evidence, resorting to screaming, shrieking, and threatening the world with nuclear strikes.
Presenters on state channels act not as journalists, but as performers in a cruel reality show. Their task is not to inform, but to trigger short-lived emotions: hatred, malice, and aggression toward fabricated enemies.
This hysteria, Guelman explains, is a definitive sign of weakness, not strength:
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Another factor highlighted by Guelman is the permanent destruction of the state’s monopoly on information. In the 21st century, building a sealed information cocoon—as existed in the Soviet Union—is impossible.
In the Soviet era, an individual had two television channels and a handful of newspapers, giving the state complete control over what was consumed. Today, despite draconian blockades by Roskomnadzor, the internet, social media networks, Telegram channels, and YouTube persist. Millions of people, particularly younger generations, actively utilize VPN services to access uncensored information. The state can block a website, but it cannot block human curiosity.
This creates a condition Guelman terms information schizophrenia, where an individual inhabits two parallel realities simultaneously:
The gap between official framing and daily reality has widened to a point where ignoring it is impossible. At this exact juncture, faith in the official narrative collapses.
The regime committed a fatal strategic error by underestimating the population's capacity to compare, analyze, and draw conclusions. You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time—especially when the lie directly impacts their core survival needs.
Propaganda has ceased to be coherent or consistent, frequently contradicting itself and generating cognitive dissonance:
These shifting justifications suggest deep panic rather than tactical flexibility. The system scrambles to find a coherent explanation, yet every attempt appears artificial and strained. Propaganda that cannot articulate a consistent objective cannot mobilize a society for a prolonged struggle; it can only maintain a state of confusion and learned helplessness.
Guelman also highlights the cultural dimension. Effective propaganda historically drew support from vibrant culture—creating myths, songs, and cinema that shaped generations. The Soviet Union built a cultural apparatus that served its ideology, producing works that possessed genuine artistic talent.
By contrast, modern Russian propaganda has created a cultural wasteland over the past two years:
Desperately recycling Soviet victory myths from World War II no longer yields the same results. For younger generations, that history feels abstract and distant from their daily lives and technology. The system has proven culturally sterile—a clear indicator of internal decay. When a regime loses the ability to communicate through contemporary culture, it loses its connection to the population, leaving only raw coercion.
A critical flaw identified by Guelman is the complete absence of a vision for the future.
Propaganda speaks endlessly about the past—real or invented—appealing to ancient grievances and historical victories to justify the present. It addresses the present by framing the world as hostile and demanding unity against external threats. Yet it offers zero narrative regarding the future:
The regime offers no attractive vision of the future because it possesses none. Its underlying framework is driven by reaction and resentment, aimed not at creation, but at retaining power and preserving the past. Yet societies—especially younger demographics—cannot function without a vision of tomorrow. When the state strips away hope, offering only eternal confrontation, it forfeits long-term loyalty.
Ultimately, Guelman argues, the primary executioner of propaganda is reality itself:
Propaganda has degraded into background noise. While it still resonates with a core loyalist audience predisposed to believe any state narrative, it has lost its ability to persuade undecided demographics or opponents. It no longer expands its support base; it merely clings to a shrinking core.
When Guelman states that propaganda no longer works, he does not mean it has vanished. He means it has hollowed out into an empty ritual executed by momentum—a machine generating lies on an industrial scale to a shrinking audience.
The moment a critical mass of the population ceases to believe, the structure—lacking a foundation of organic public support—collapses under its own weight. That moment may be closer than it appears, because deception accumulates like radiation until it eventually degrades the organism that produced it. The regime has consumed its own narrative, believing its myths of invincibility while losing touch with reality. The machine maintains an illusion of universal unity, but that illusion risks shattering at the first major crisis, exposing the vacuum beneath.
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