“This system clearly failed when balagulas got access to newspapers and other sources of information”
The ‘Baalei Agalos’ i.e. wagon drivers (stock name for simple working class Yidden of yesteryear for those who didn’t understand), were the LAST group of Yidden to go off, and most of them never did. (The first ones to go were krum iluyim who thought they were smarter than their Rabbeim, who then became leaders and recruiters in the Haskalah movement.) It was the children of the ‘balagulas’ who joined secularist movements, to the chagrin of their parents.
This matzav, BTW, was primarily in Lithuania/Belarus/Northeast Poland, collectively referred to as ‘Lita’, where Haskalah was raging from the mid-19th century onwards, and which was almost completely secularized by the eve of WWII. By the Chassidim, the matzav stayed better for longer, although that was being severely challenged post WWI. The secret ingredient is listening to the Gedolim, something Chassidim were and are better at…