Sound Off!

Freedom Faxing
A chance meeting inspires a retrospective look at how a very simple machine can bring about massive change. What could happen in today’s world? Let’s take a look.

I was in New York in the mid-1980s, taking taxis to various meetings, when I met Boris. A big, rather serious, gruff-voiced New York City taxi driver, Boris appeared to be in his late fifties and spoke with an accent that was clearly Russian. He was born and raised in Moscow.

We struck up a conversation, covering a number of subjects, such as the recent weather in New York, what it is like driving a taxi in New York traffic, normal things like that. Then, Boris began to talk about Russia and his memories of living in a communist, totalitarian state. This conversation made an impression on me, but at the time, I didn’t realize I was listening to prophetic thoughts of gigantic proportions. Events years later caused me to remember Boris and his prophesy.

Boris began to predict the demise of communism in Russia. He theorized that a totalitarian state could continue to exist only as long as the State controlled the information that was available to the population. As long as the State controlled the material in newspapers, televisions, and radios, communism could survive indefinitely. The Russian government was certainly controlling the media in those days. However, he theorized, when the State no longer controlled the information that flowed to the public, communism would die.

Boris predicted, in 1985, that communism in Russia was going to end very soon. He explained that this was all going to happen because of the fax machine. His theory was simple: Communism in Russia could not survive because the Politboro could no longer control the exchange of information between the people. In effect, the fax machine ended the government’s control over the distribution of information. To be polite, I agreed that his theory was thought-provoking, paid my fare, and moved on to the next event on the schedule for that day.

I never gave another thought to Boris and his theory until the events of 1989. It was those events that gave me pause and rekindled my remembrances of his prophecy that “the free flow of information between people will undermine the totalitarian State, and eventually lead to personal freedom.”

In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, Germany was reunited, the Russian State disintegrated into autonomous countries, capitalism began to ascend, and communism in Russia died—all because of the fax machine. So now you have it on good authority, from Boris, the Russian-born New York City taxi driver. The fax machine brought down communist Russia.

If the fax machine brought down communist Russia, I wonder what the Internet is doing to communist China?