Gaslighting: Joseph Stalin
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| By Gemini AI |
When power cannot control reality, it begins to
rewrite it. Gaslighting has become a common practice all over the world now.
For those who are not familiar with the word, gaslighting refers to the
practice of psychologically manipulating someone into questioning their own
knowledge, memory, and/or powers of reasoning. Gaslighting makes us doubt the
truth we clearly see. If politics distorted facts earlier, today it teaches us
to distrust our own perception of them – and that’s gaslighting.
The real crisis of our
times is not misinformation, but the steady erosion of our confidence in what
is real.
Joseph Stalin
Many political leaders used this art
of gaslighting effectively in the past, though the word is new. Let us take
Joseph Stalin as an example today, one of the most systematic practitioners of
gaslighting.
Stalin was a master of converting the
very obvious reality into a political instrument. He didn’t merely censor
facts, he rewrote them. Photographs were altered to erase purged officials.
Former allies became enemies overnight. Confessions were extracted…
Speaking of confessions – we may be
reminded of Nikolai Bukharin whom none other than Lenin called “the favourite
of the whole party.” This man was a Marxist theorist, a leading figure in the
early Communist Party, and the principal advocate of the New Economic Policy
[NEP – not to be confused with Narendara Modi’s NEP]. Yet Stalin made him stand
in a courtroom and calmly confess to being a traitor and a spy.
What Stalin did was to subject the
man to relentless interrogations, psychological pressure, threats to his
family, and prolonged isolation. By the time Bukharin spoke, the confession had
already been written; he had to just perform it. Bukharin’s was a
manufactured guilt. He was one of the many victims of gaslighting in human
history.
Stalin’s totalitarian regime demanded
confessions. Modern ‘democracies’ have much more ingenious ways of gaslighting.
Like reframing reality through repetition. Protestors become “antinational,”
for example. Policy failures can be made to look like masterstrokes. Narratives
are fabricated with the help of the media, especially social media.
Whataboutery suddenly becomes a sacred cow: What did Jawaharlal Nehru do?
Critics become urban Naxals. TV anchors shout at us as if we are the most
damned sinners in the country. Worst of all, all kinds of Senas come and accuse
us of insulting the nation or betraying it.
Truth was what Stalin declared it to
be. Gaslighting can make a cloud out of a mountain and then convince you the
sky was always empty. Gaslighting can make an 80 million starving population
believe that they are living in a $5-trillion economy.
The real danger of
gaslighting is not that people believe lies. It is that they begin to doubt
their own judgment. When that happens, public discourse weakens.
The most effective gaslighting today
does not demand belief; it quietly erodes the confidence to question the given
truths.
PS. Want examples of PM Modi’s use of gaslighting? Click here.
PS. This post is a part
of Blogchatter A2Z Challenge 2026
Previous Posts in this
series
Tomorrow: Hero Worship – Indira Gandhi
Sir, let me tell you certain stories related to my daughter who is at 6th standard. While she wrote her Hindi classwork, very neatly with lovely pictures, the teacher told it's not good, and showed it to the class. Then again for her music selection, at school, she could see she got A+ in the sheet, which is eligible for selection, but the teacher denied, saying you got B+ and did not announce her name in the selected team. I think this is gaslighting. I am telling you, Sir, because I look up to you as a teacher, and as a learner, I look up to all teachers. This sort of behaviour can be really demotivating.
ReplyDeleteIt’s heartbreaking to hear that your daughter is going through this. A 6th-grader’s classroom should be a place of encouragement, not a place where their hard work is dismissed or their achievements are hidden. Your concern isn't just about the grades; it’s about her sense of fairness and self-worth.
DeleteA teacher should never humiliate a little student publicly. Errors can be corrected in so many other numerous and effective ways. Also, the discrepancy between the A+ on the sheet and the teacher’s verbal 'B+' is the most concerning part. That isn't just a difference of opinion; it’s a factual inconsistency that warrants a polite but firm clarification.
As a person who spent all of 4 decades in teaching, I feel sad about what your daughter has had to face. As mother, you need to take care of the situation with some tenderness. Make sure she knows that her 'lovely pictures' and her 'A+' talent are real, regardless of what was said. Sometimes children need to know that even adults can be wrong or biased.
Reubenna, my heart goes out to you and your daughter. A teacher should help a child to blossom, not resort to gaslighting. The only way, as Tomichan has said above, is to instil confidence in your daughter by praising her and making up for the biases of her teacher. Good luck to you!
DeleteGas Lighting is part of our Post-Truth Culture and Construction of Alternative Facts. There is also the cultivated Art of Obfuscation, going along with Whataboutry.
ReplyDeleteI chose this topic precisely because gaslighting has become too common now, universal.
DeleteHari OM
ReplyDeleteGood Gracious, you Grasped Gaslighting and Gave Great examples! YAM xx
We have living Stalins still around.
DeleteHave you seen the movie? It's fascinating to me how the term has lately taken off even though the movie came out in 1944. Not a great movie, but poor Ingrid Bergman.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know that the term was derived from the movie.
DeleteRe "Modern ‘democracies’"
ReplyDeleteOf course, you Tomichan understand that there are no democracies thus you framed the word like that, ‘democracies’
Any alleged expert or layperson who talks about "democracies" AS IF a real democracy ACTUALLY EXISTS ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD (or has existed at any time in 'human civilization') is evidently either a fool who's repeating mindlessly and blindly the propaganda fed to them since they were a kid and/or is a member of the corrupt establishment minions whose job is to disseminate this total lie because any "democracy" of 'human civilization' has always been a covert structure of the rule of a few over the many operating behind the pretense name and facade of a "democracy": https://www.rolf-hefti.com/covid-19-coronavirus.html
"There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. [...]. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies [...]. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable laws of business. The world is a business [...]." --- from the 1976 movie “Network”
"We can either have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." --- Louis Brandeis, Supreme Court Justice
Watch this, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TC5EVkKfvbQ, to see for yourself that there's zero democracy in the US empire (or any other imperial nations controlled by the US empire), and that a criminal gang of Jewish psychopaths rule globally.
"Elites are afraid of equality, they are afraid of real democracy, and they are afraid of justice." ---Scott Noble, filmmaker
Your indignation is understandable and I share it too to a great extent. I can paraphrase one of your sentences as: There is no India; there is no democracy. There is only Ambani, Adani, and Modi.
DeleteGaslighting has been happening over the years, and yet, it is recently that the term has come into such frequent use. I remember watching a movie by Alfred Hitchcock, I think, with the same word as the title. Sadly, dictators have always resorted to gaslighting to influence their subjects.
ReplyDeleteIs it the same movie that Liz refers to in her comment?
DeleteI'm a poor movie-goer.
Gaslighting is an ancient art perfected by our contemporaries.
Ahhh !! Gaslighting is the buzz word these days in the political scenario. And you are so right about the news anchors screaming at us. Apart from politics, I personally have tasted it , thanks to my workplace politics.
ReplyDeleteWe're living in post-truth world and hence gaslighting has become unavoidable.
Delete