> The result? People still knew they were all full of shit.

It's just that the purpose of all this totalitarian control wasn't so that people wouldn't know. It was so that people couldn't do anything about it even if they knew.

The result was achieved, the measures you listed as examples worked effectively.

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somenameforme 4 days ago | parent [-]

Was it? The USSR didn't even make it to its 70th birthday. The leaders of the next generation are brought up in the current. Gorbachev essentially destroyed the USSR, but that's probably in large part because his formative years where under Stalin. His first major foray into politics was as as a rather enthusiastic advocate of the de-Stalinization that happened after Stalin's death. So the leader of a system was somebody who lived under, suffered under, and likely loathed, even if secretly, that system.

This is one of the many examples of the consequences of actions stretching out much further than many realize. A famous quote from Stalin is that, "I know that after my death a pile of rubbish will be heaped on my grave, but the wind of History will sooner or later sweep it away without mercy." His Machiavellian vision likely had him seeing himself as the savior of the USSR, when in reality his actions are almost certainly a key reason that it no longer exists today.

	▲	Ray20 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		> The USSR didn't even make it to its 70th birthday. Not because the will or the struggle of the people. Gorbachev began to abolish the aforementioned totalitarian measures, creating the opportunity for a party coup. If totalitarian control had not been weakened, nothing would have prevented the Soviet Union from existing to this day. > Gorbachev essentially destroyed the USSR No, he didn't do that. He loosened the totalitarian control, and that was it. Then other opportunistic leaders of the Communist Party took advantage of the situation and seized power, dividing up the resources of the huge country among themselves. And because the old regime was full of shit and everyone knew it, no one stood up for it. > his actions are almost certainly a key reason that it no longer exists today. Rather, his actions were the reason why the Soviet regime lasted so long. I mean, the unviability of the socialist project was a proven fact in 1918, long before the USSR was even called that. And everything that happened after that was simply an attempt to cling to power by totalitarian and terrorist methods, first by Lenin, then by Stalin.