Reply #4: As this OP points out ... INFORMATION is the most effective weapon against oppression...

[Blackhatjack]

Stalin understood that people were both useful and dangerous because of one thing, what they knew and how they might use that knowledge. Stalin engaged in regular purges of top officials to eliminate those who 'knew' and to scare into submission any underlings from sharing with others 'anything they might know.'

And of course, the practical result was that the people were controlled by the information they were 'given' by the government, and the by the lack of 'outside information' that might challenge the official information given by the government.

Once information from the outside world began to filter inside the USSR, it was only a matter of time before the people became impossible to control.

In the US there is no way to control all of the information that might be communicated by government officials to those outside of government, but there are the twin antidotes ... disinformation and discrediting of the sources.

As pointed out 'there are lies, damned lies and official lies....', and it all depends on the agenda of the organization with power to classify them before we know which are which.