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To cap it all off, any publication or social media post by a foreign agent must be accompanied by an irritating disclaimer typed in block capitals to ensure that anyone innocently browsing the content is immediately made aware that its author is an outcast from society.
Threatening ostracization as a means of combating dissent is a well-established phenomenon in Russia and was widely used during the Soviet era when an entire category of citizens was deprived of their basic civil rights and denied even the right to vote.
The term “foreign agent” was used by both the Bolsheviks and their Soviet successors to intimidate dissenters and to put a “black mark” on their political opponents, which usually meant their arrest would soon follow.
By 1930, the term “foreign agent” was being used routinely by Stalin as a tool to crush anyone who opposed his dictatorship.
The constant talk of foreign agents disappeared from the Soviet press after Stalin’s death and Nikita Khrushchev’s subsequent denunciation of the Great Terror. And yet, none of that prevented Russia from resurrecting the “enemy within” narrative over half a century later
