[OfSanguineFire]

> GP spoke of people who retreat into what seems to be passive silence.

I said people who retreat into private words. Samizdat was a private world. Events held in people’s homes was private worlds. Writing non-conforming literature or music “for one’s desk drawer” was a private world. Modern dissidents using censorship-evading, privacy-guaranteeing software to enjoy community are in private worlds.

Calling such dissidents “part of the problem” is not helpful. There have been famous cases where Westerners’ demands for how dissidents should behave, actually pushed dissidents closer to the regime.