"But although the content of public writing and performance was spectacularly metamorphosed by the fall of Hitler, Mussolini and the followers, the tone stayed much the same." 
Thomas Judt writing abut the post-WW2 intellectuals (Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945")


Is it just me or would this observation refer also to post-soviet Europe? The same people who were involved in soviet propaganda one day just changed the subject matter - instead of raving about communism, they started to rave about democracy. Or nationalism. But the tone, the manner of speaking didn't change - lots of pathos, exalted means of expression, "you are either with us or you're an enemy" way of thinking. In my opinion, that did a lot of harm to our democratic beginnings. Democracy is not just about publicly proclaiming " correct"  values, it's even more about being calm and  tolerant towards differing views, attempts to find compromises. As the recent referendum on a very sensitive subject (one state language or two state languages) has demonstrated clearly in case of Latvia - we're still not there. In times of stress, there are still too many whose natural impulse would be to turn to propaganda.