The Lost Revolution that Won

Through an exclusive breakthrough in quantum journalism, Open for Business has obtained a classified Soviet Union memorandum from an alternate timeline. The document from 1956 in that reality describes a service we never enjoyed, Tick Tock Radio (TTR), an initiative apparently key to that reality’s starkly divergent present day from our own.

Using the latest electron decay analysis, we can confirm this document’s authenticity, a window into a parallel universe’s key forking point from our timeline. The document is translated from the original Russian with bureaucratic nomenclature preserved when relevant.

Comrade Breshkov,
We continue our efforts for the glorious global Revolution. The Imperialist Capitalist Pigs rail against our efforts to bring Communism to the world, but they do so unaware of our reach within institutions.

Our latest effort is far more powerful than any sleeper agent could have ever been. It is so successful that their ignorance of it can only be ascribed to blindness caused by the ruling class’s greed and the workers’ oppression.

As one of their authors once mused in a short story, The Purloined Letter, the thing searched for is often best hidden in plain sight. That’s precisely what we have done with our new program, Broadcasting the Youth’s Truth Exclusively - Dynamic Attention Neuroscience Center for Education (BYTE-DANCE).

Through a series of useful court and legislative decisions, the Capitalist Scum have allowed us to acquire the most popular radio stations listened to by the bourgeoisie’s youth in each major city of America. The Central Committee’s foresight in investing in TTR gives us daily access to nearly half of the country to educate them in the ways of the Party.

You may wonder, Comrade, how we could evade the Americans’ substantial security apparatus. We’ve headquartered BYTE-DANCE in Yugoslavia, instead of a Soviet Republic. While the McCarthites suspect we control BYTE-DANCE, particularly since the holding company’s leaders are all from the Motherland, an adequate number of those suspicious authorities are nervous about acting against our network, lest their sons and daughters disown them.

To be sure, we must be careful in how we go about reeducating the future members of the American Soviet Republic. They are dulled by the corrosion of greed and social hierarchies, but they can be unexpectedly clever. We must not let our guard down about our adversaries, for they fight the inevitable global rise of the proletariat at every turn.

We do not air the Chairman’s messages nor dare regale them with all the wonders of Soviet science at once. Rather, we have found the most effective form of communication is to slightly blunt the targets’ patriotic fervor, revealing their leaders’ flaws and embellishing where existing rumors would make exaggerations believable.

Amid innocuous hourly update filled with the typical news listeners expect, adjusted by our comrades as I have described above, we include the occasional hint that something mysteriously good might be happening within our glorious Warsaw Pact alliance. We must be subtle, but we hint that the listener’s authorities are keeping this progress of the workers’ struggle cloaked by that rat Churchill’s “Iron Curtain.”

Herein, we start to awaken the workers’ awareness of the oppressor classes and point them to the solution we know is the only path to freedom and enlightenment: the Marxist-Leninist truth. The occasional guest interview between songs, from an appealing, youthful academic, speaks only enough of our comrades’ insights as to whet the listeners’ appetites.

Our adversaries are so foolish as to allow far more of our liberating education to be purveyed in libraries and schools than we dare broadcast. They are not yet mature enough for a clarion such as Pravda, but America’s Pravda will come in time.

Our Marxist-Leninist forefathers told us of the unstoppable liberation from capitalist oppression awaiting us all. For now, we are content to awaken the youthful masses to an awareness of class consciousness. We know access to a diversity of ideas is enslaving, but our adversaries’ love for “freedom of speech” works to our advantage for now, as the seeds we plant can be allowed to germinate in front of the capitalist stooges’ very eyes!

This, Comrade, is an impressive feat that must not be overshadowed by the distasteful necessity of discussing their backward ideology of “liberty.” We keep focused on the future, remembering the plight of our comrade workers whom we aid in rising up. America’s workers are ignorant, they do not know the distasteful refuse dump of oppression in which they dwell.

Their ignorance brings us to the most ingenious aspect of BYTE-DANCE: the TTR “call-in program.” Giving the unenlightened American youth the ability to call the station with requests leads them to believe they are determining the radio playlist.

We only allow them genuine influence when it is immaterial to our cause. The rubbish they call “culture” is often so interchangeably bad we can humor them while careful reflexive control moves them to the most culturally destructive choices. This “influence” excites them enough to recruit friends to call in.

Once they call in, we ask them seemingly harmless questions about their hobbies, aspirations, and daily activities. Everything is presented with the nauseating capitalistic sheen of the quiz shows the Western oppressors love so much. It is remarkable, Comrade, the willingness with which the capitalist youth divulge their personal details. Their suspicions fall faster than a czarist before the people’s army! We simply say the name “Elvis” — a peculiarly haired styled man of pure bourgeoise excess — and they will do anything to hear more of his music.

As they hand over their information, we adjust the news updates to insinuate their American institutions are opposed to the things they say they most love. For good measure, we also suggest how Washington’s foreign allies, such as Israel, hate individuals like them. We help them doubt both the domestic and international policies of their “representatives.”

Such a distasteful term, “representative.” They think they get a say in elections, choosing politicians who will do their own biding, not recognizing that capitalist mythologies too sedate them to stand for their own needs against the ruling classes! What a glorious day it will be when we can appoint true people’s representatives who will do what is appropriate to meet the needs of all workers and eliminate all classes.

The societal decadence and rot demonstrated by this Elvis — they call him “the king” — and other “rock and roll stars” the American pigs so idolize provides the perfect vector for a controlled implosion of their backward ideology. Comrade, they will soon tire of this grotesque musical monarch, only because their depraved thirsts will demand quenching by even more “innovative” (worse) performers.

Through our acquisition of music studios, we will have dozens of far more contemptible “stars” to give them exactly what they demand. These useful idiots are everywhere in America. Combined with a few well-placed comrades we call “influencers,” who easily hide in the capitalistic excess of celebrity, we prepare listeners for our next measures. We play up the audience’s worst capitalist impulses while softening them ahead of their inevitable unchaining from bourgeoise control.

Should they even think of turning elsewhere for entertainment, we reengage them through our free newsletter, Tick Tock For You. Using information from our call-in system, our local city cells create a maskirovka of personalization so the idiots believe BYTE-DANCE cares about them. Like a drunk to vodka, affirmation of their weaknesses builds a trust we exploit, driving them toward our most useful assets in music and beyond.

As we implement the supremely wise plan laid out by the Ministry of Culture, one detail requires requisition of further funds from the Central Committee. Comrade, some of the less corruptible — but, in my estimation, far more contemptible — authorities have grown wise to our plans.

They have documented how our TTR news broadcasts have suspicious emphases, no matter how subtle, about the superior life of those within the Revolution. They have observed how we emphasize scandal of those who stand in our way, a matter exacerbated by a few unfortunate choices we’ve made in our dezinformatsiya efforts that were later proven false too clearly for us to obfuscate behind uncertainty.

We must destroy these authorities by whatever means, by hiring what they call “lobbyists” and “advertising agencies.” These are paid advocates that are everything we know to be contemptible about the capitalist hegemony, but dealing with them is necessary if we are to see future comrades arm-in-arm with us in America.

Our too-aware foes are pushing to enforce a newly enacted law that would require us to give up our radio holdings. They know, just as we do, that foreign adversaries should never be allowed to control the mass media for the proletariat. If we had been so foolish as to hand over our communications to them, think of the capitalistic slumbers our comrades would now have fallen to!

Yes, they see the problem even as they advocate for their backward system. So we must destroy them. Our agents of influence in their region capitals, and in Washington itself, will try to corrupt those cynical to TTR with gifts and praise.

Our operatives tasked with “advertising” will run in print and on broadcast propaganda about all the good the Tick Tock Radio Network does around the country. We will note all the free advertising spots we give to small businesses, allowing them to thrive.

Many of the listeners will have family and friends who benefit, which will only increase their pressure against the more cynical authorities. The politicians who are too stupid to yield will be cast as those who not only hate the youth, but also hate even their compatriot business owners.

Yes, Comrade, this too is distasteful, for we are not eager to grow the bourgeoisie. Patience is required here. Once Revolution comes we can divert these “small business owners” to the oversight of the Department of Innovative Enterprises (DIE).

Under the vigilant gaze of the Party’s future American Soviet, DIE will know what to do with these so-called “entrepreneurs.”