[SauronOfMordor]

The worst Communist atrocities usually occur at least a decade after power is consolidated. The Chinese Cultural Revolution began 17 years after the Communists expelled the Nationalists. Stalin's extermination of the kulaks and the massive expansion of the gulags took place 15 years after the Bolshevik coup in St. Petersburg.

There's a reason for that time lag. A totalitarian state must first ensure that the common population is disarmed before committing large-scale atrocities, and so it needs a relatively quiet period, followed by gun registration and confiscation (as the USSR did in 1929) before engaging in real large-scale killing (as the USSR engaged in in the 1930's

[Ptarmigan]

Totalitarianism does not happen overnight. It's a gradual process.