One tactic that Stalin and the other Communist leadership used during WWII was the use of the term “Mother Russia”. It was always about saving Mother Russia, not saving Communism.
When Stalin died, many people who were put into the Gulags, cried.
“During the 1890s Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov was looking at salivation in dogs in response to being fed, when he noticed that his dogs would begin to salivate whenever he entered the room, even when he was not bringing them food.”
(Classical Conditioning.)