I lived in a communist regime until I was 13, and my general impression was that everything was mostly okay and everyone was mostly happy. That was partially a childhood naiveté, but also partially an effect of censorship. Even if I was dissatisfied with something, I didn’t attribute it specifically to the political regime, but to failures of specific people, and the failures of bureaucracy which is a necessary evil of a civilized society. All problems seemed like “first-world problems”. (Actually, attributing all failures to individuals was explicitly encouraged by the regime. Assuming the individuals were not powerful communists, of course.)
I had absolutely no idea that there were people around me who had their family members kidnapped by the secret police and tortured, sometimes to death, for “crimes” such as having a different opinion and debating it with other similar “criminals”. I didn’t understand why all documents about me emphasised that I had “workers’ lineage” when in fact both my parents had university education; but I assumed it was just another weird bureaucratic way of speech. (It actually meant that I was free from the hereditary sin of “bourgeois lineage” i.e. having an entrepreneur among my ancestors. People with “bourgeois lineage” were not allowed to study at universities, and couldn’t get any good job as long as someone else with “workers’ lineage” was available for the same job.)
After learning all this information (and realizing that it actually explained a few weird things that I previously noticed but didn’t have a good explanation for), I couldn’t see the situation with the same eyes anymore.
The important thing is that this knowledge is now a public knowledge, which means that not only “I know” and “you know”, but also “I know that you know” and “you know that I know that you know”, et cetera.
If there is only one person “making problems”, it is easy for the regime to get rid of them, while maintaining the façade. After midnight, a group of men in black coats with guns will knock on their door and take them away. Worst case, the family will never hear about them again, officially. Unofficially, sometimes a stranger on the street will later tell them to not expect their family member back because he’s dead; and no, you won’t even receive the body for burial, because fuck you, you anticommunist filth! (Also the relatives will get written in their documents “a relative of a suspected traitor”, which means: forget ever studying at a university or getting a good job.)
If a group of people “makes problems” publicly, the police will quickly take them away, and no media will ever mention the story. But if a large group of people makes a public demonstration at the center of a big city, and if they refuse to surrender quickly and silently to the police, then too many people will notice that “something happened”. The regime now cannot deal with the problem by usual silence. They will probably publish an official explanation, something like: “A small group of traitors paid by Americans was trying to disrupt our peace and prosperity, but don’t worry, our brave policemen have eliminated the threat. Please stay calm and don’t listen to any rumors; also report all suspicious behavior and rumor spreading to the police.” But even this kinda admits that some people have some objections, so the façade of “we are all one big happy family” starts cracking apart. And people are too curious, so various rumors will start spreading anyway.
On the other hand, even this public knowledge can be reversed. One should never underestimate the capacity of motivated people to deny anything. A few years later, when the shock of seeing the true face of regime has faded, if some sympathizers of the previous regime remained at power, they can create a synchronized denial. All they have to do is to start saying publicly: “This never happened; actually this is all merely American propaganda”. At the beginning everyone knows it’s a lie, but now also people who want to turn a blind eye to everything know that actually there is a socially acceptable way to deny everything; that they are not a powerless minority. So they start repeating the denial as a way signal belonging to their tribe. And their children will grow up actually believing that nothing bad happened, and that everything is merely a propaganda. And it’s just a question of time until people start saying: “Well, why don’t we get rid of the American propaganda now, and return to the glorious old days?”.
What you describe is the winding-down days of communism, during it’s hayday the arrests and torture didn’t happen in the middle of the night, but in broad daylight, to cheering crowds. This phenomenon, not limited to communist states, works as follows:
The official line is not that everybody is happy and everything is perfect, but that everything would be perfect if it wasn’t for the rightists/heretics/sexists/racists/etc. (depending on the society). The insidious thing about this is that anybody who has a different opinion and debates it can be charged with rightism, and is in fact guilty by definition. Heck anyone arrested, even if he wasn’t originally a rightist has almost no way to defend himself without making the charge true. The only chance he has is demonstrating his loyalty by being as fanatical as possible at the next rally.
I lived in a communist regime until I was 13, and my general impression was that everything was mostly okay and everyone was mostly happy. That was partially a childhood naiveté, but also partially an effect of censorship. Even if I was dissatisfied with something, I didn’t attribute it specifically to the political regime, but to failures of specific people, and the failures of bureaucracy which is a necessary evil of a civilized society. All problems seemed like “first-world problems”. (Actually, attributing all failures to individuals was explicitly encouraged by the regime. Assuming the individuals were not powerful communists, of course.)
I had absolutely no idea that there were people around me who had their family members kidnapped by the secret police and tortured, sometimes to death, for “crimes” such as having a different opinion and debating it with other similar “criminals”. I didn’t understand why all documents about me emphasised that I had “workers’ lineage” when in fact both my parents had university education; but I assumed it was just another weird bureaucratic way of speech. (It actually meant that I was free from the hereditary sin of “bourgeois lineage” i.e. having an entrepreneur among my ancestors. People with “bourgeois lineage” were not allowed to study at universities, and couldn’t get any good job as long as someone else with “workers’ lineage” was available for the same job.)
After learning all this information (and realizing that it actually explained a few weird things that I previously noticed but didn’t have a good explanation for), I couldn’t see the situation with the same eyes anymore.
The important thing is that this knowledge is now a public knowledge, which means that not only “I know” and “you know”, but also “I know that you know” and “you know that I know that you know”, et cetera.
If there is only one person “making problems”, it is easy for the regime to get rid of them, while maintaining the façade. After midnight, a group of men in black coats with guns will knock on their door and take them away. Worst case, the family will never hear about them again, officially. Unofficially, sometimes a stranger on the street will later tell them to not expect their family member back because he’s dead; and no, you won’t even receive the body for burial, because fuck you, you anticommunist filth! (Also the relatives will get written in their documents “a relative of a suspected traitor”, which means: forget ever studying at a university or getting a good job.)
If a group of people “makes problems” publicly, the police will quickly take them away, and no media will ever mention the story. But if a large group of people makes a public demonstration at the center of a big city, and if they refuse to surrender quickly and silently to the police, then too many people will notice that “something happened”. The regime now cannot deal with the problem by usual silence. They will probably publish an official explanation, something like: “A small group of traitors paid by Americans was trying to disrupt our peace and prosperity, but don’t worry, our brave policemen have eliminated the threat. Please stay calm and don’t listen to any rumors; also report all suspicious behavior and rumor spreading to the police.” But even this kinda admits that some people have some objections, so the façade of “we are all one big happy family” starts cracking apart. And people are too curious, so various rumors will start spreading anyway.
On the other hand, even this public knowledge can be reversed. One should never underestimate the capacity of motivated people to deny anything. A few years later, when the shock of seeing the true face of regime has faded, if some sympathizers of the previous regime remained at power, they can create a synchronized denial. All they have to do is to start saying publicly: “This never happened; actually this is all merely American propaganda”. At the beginning everyone knows it’s a lie, but now also people who want to turn a blind eye to everything know that actually there is a socially acceptable way to deny everything; that they are not a powerless minority. So they start repeating the denial as a way signal belonging to their tribe. And their children will grow up actually believing that nothing bad happened, and that everything is merely a propaganda. And it’s just a question of time until people start saying: “Well, why don’t we get rid of the American propaganda now, and return to the glorious old days?”.
What you describe is the winding-down days of communism, during it’s hayday the arrests and torture didn’t happen in the middle of the night, but in broad daylight, to cheering crowds. This phenomenon, not limited to communist states, works as follows:
The official line is not that everybody is happy and everything is perfect, but that everything would be perfect if it wasn’t for the rightists/heretics/sexists/racists/etc. (depending on the society). The insidious thing about this is that anybody who has a different opinion and debates it can be charged with rightism, and is in fact guilty by definition. Heck anyone arrested, even if he wasn’t originally a rightist has almost no way to defend himself without making the charge true. The only chance he has is demonstrating his loyalty by being as fanatical as possible at the next rally.