I can't see how anyone - dictatorial, intimidating or whatever - could harm the music. It was what it was, it is what it is, and it will be what it will be. "Folk" music is pretty much whatever the folk play & sing to amuse themselves. If a buncha "folk" sit around a campfire and sing "Act Naturally" then that song is on its way to becoming part of a (if not "the") tradition. Some can sniff that it ain't folk, by by gum the folk have the last word, always. There have aleways been - and probably always will be - confused people who think that scholarship is prescriptive; who study stuff as it is & has been, and bollix themselves into thinking that's the way it's supposed to be. Pshaw. These folks help a great deal by letting us know what's been; smart "folk" stop listening when scholars begin dictating.