Václav Havel: The Power of the Powerless
On how socialism permeates a society:
“[it] touches people at every step, but it does so with its ideological gloves on. This is why life in the system is so thoroughly permeated with hypocrisy and lies: government by bureaucracy is called popular government; the working class is enslaved in the name of the work ing class; the complete degradation of the individual is presented as his ultimate
liberation; depriving people of information is called making it available; the use of power to manipulate is called the public control of power, and the arbitrary abuse of power is called observing the legal code; the repression of culture is called its development; the expansion of imperial
influence is presented as support for the oppressed; the lack of free expression becomes the highest form of freedom; farcical elections become the highest form of democracy; banning independent thought becomes the most scientific of world views; military occupation becomes fraternal assistance. Because the regime is captive to its own lies, it must falsify everything. It falsifies the past. It falsifies the present, and it falsifies the future. It falsifies statistics. It pretends not to possess an omnipotent and unprincipled police apparatus. It pretends to respect human rights. It pretends to persecute no one. It pretends to fear nothing. It pretends to pretend nothing.
“Individuals need not believe all these mystifications, but they must behave as though they did, or they must at least tolerate them in silence, or get along well with those who work with them. For this reason, however, they must live within a lie. They need not accept the lie. It is enough for them to have accepted their life with it and in it. For by this very fact, individuals confirm the system, fulfill the system, make the system, are the system.”
from:
Václav Havel: The Power of the Powerless
http://bit.ly/4bqmRu
bfl, that looks worthwhile.
That was one of the odder differences between Nazism and Communism.
Nazis felt no particular need to lie about what they were doing. They were going to crush their enemies, and made no bones about it.
Most of those murdered in the Great Purge were forced to sign a confession, despite the fact that they knew, and their killers knew, that the confessions were false, and that with rare exceptions nobody would ever see the confessions.
For some obscure reason the Commies nevertheless had a compulsion to pretend they were acting justly. The sickest part is that they forced people in a sense to become participants in their own destruction.