>Very few people feared or believed the Communists any longer, ridiculing their institutions and their lying media.<
Looks like the USA in 2016.
Substitute Democrat or Federal Government and the same sentence applies here.
Communism in a nutshell:
The promise of free stuff is what got people on-board.
The threat of losing that free stuff is what got people to stay in-line.
The poor quality of that free stuff is what got people disillusioned.
The knowledge of better stuff that you only have to work for is what got people to cast Communism off.