You know the joke about two running away from a bear and one stops to put on track shoes? "I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun YOU!
That is how Stalin and other autocrats control(led) their powerful subordinates. Everyone of them felt the heavy hand of suspicion and did their best to point it off on a peer.
To break this chain requires a conspiracy and then you run into the old truism that any 3 people can keep a secret - if 2 of them are dead! When an informant can save themselves by betraying a plot, how do you keep that plot from being betrayed? IT CAN BE DONE but the odds are always bad!
Or, a Freedom minded person can sacrifice themselves for mankind.