[COPY] What Happens to People Under Autocratic Rule?

The Steady State takes the opportunity to re-publish this essay that continues to be very timely.

The Trump Administration’s cascading lawlessness has now made us easy prey to “news fatigue” and its dangerous corollary – considering outrageous behavior as somehow normal or acceptable. This is one reason the national outpouring on October 18 of the “No Kings” protest was so heartening. Millions of people showed that they are determined not to accept the Administration’s destruction of our democracy.

However, sustaining that commitment is vital. Otherwise, as we know from examples all over the world, what can happen to ordinary citizens, once a country slides into autocracy, is ugly. Let’s look at the Cold War, when for fifty years after World War II, the Soviet Union (which lasted until 1991) and its client Communist police dictatorships in Eastern Europe represented the chief geopolitical threat to the United States. Over a period of fifteen years, from the late 1970’s to the mid-90’s, Foreign Service assignments sent me to live and work in or near this region. Conditions varied, of course, from country to country, but the following is typical of what I saw.

Everyone knows that in those countries, some basic rights, such as freedom of speech, did not exist. But their governments – themselves creatures of the ruling Communist Parties, which alone decided what was the truth – controlled domestic intelligence capabilities and secret police who possessed complete freedom to do as they wished. Written laws “guaranteeing” rights did exist, but they could be officially ignored or changed at will. Anyone could be rousted out of bed, swept off the street, interrogated, or imprisoned, under whatever charges the state chose. Trials were only for show, and sentences were similarly arbitrary.

With the state monopolizing information sources, citizens were cut off from everything but official propaganda, unless they could listen to foreign news broadcasts (itself a crime) or obtain access to other information smuggled in. That meant the leadership’s deeds and whims dominated the nation’s affairs. Civil society as we know it did not exist; every organization to which the individual could belong – Scouts-equivalents or sports clubs, for instance – was a coercive state instrument, directed by the Party, molding conformity. The state had unfettered access to personal information. Privacy – even in a pre-facial-recognition software age – did not really exist, and state organs’ activities were only restricted by those offices’ disputes with each other or the leader(s) changing their minds.

The state was the only source of reward and punishment. Promotions at work, allotment of scarce consumer goods (a consequence of inequitable and mismanaged economies), precious travel privileges (but no farther than within the Communist world), access to tiny amounts of power (always meant for serving the state, often granted for spying on family, friends, and neighbors) – all arbitrarily doled out by the authorities. Individual success could only be defined within these limitations; striving for anything else brought conflict with the state. Perversely, those tiny bits of privilege themselves became instruments of control, because they could be just as capriciously taken away as awarded. Factories, offices, and other workplaces all had “minders”; i.e, party representatives whose job was to monitor political “reliability.”

With so little to reach for – since there was no correlation between effort and reward – no one had any incentive to exert oneself. Economic innovation and quality control disappeared. Firms gained nothing by attempting to produce more or better goods, and in fact were hampered at even trying, since their suppliers were subject to the same pressures. While money remained a necessity, its value declined as little could be bought with it. In some countries, alternative, informal currencies circulated – chiefly American cigarettes, which, of course, were not on sale anywhere. They were far too valuable to smoke, and people would go to incredible lengths to try to get them.

Over the decades, individuals lost the will to resist things they found objectionable. The incentives to just “go along” became too great, as each person tried to preserve a private space, away from the state and party, in which to be left alone. But the penalties for non-conformity also increased, forcing people to make greater and greater compromises with their consciences in order to stay relatively unscathed. Everyone was also plagued by how their families were exposed. Nothing hindered the state from inflicting punishments on spouses or children. A seven-year-old son wanted to join the only youth group going in order to be with his friends (even though its main purpose was indoctrination and manipulation), but whose parent, aunt, or uncle had stepped out of line? Probably didn’t happen. One’s daughter, having done very well in high school, was in line for top honors, but through no fault of her own, bore similar baggage? Also very unlikely. To say nothing of bigger stakes, like university places or better jobs denied.

The long nightmare for Eastern Europeans did finally come to an end (in Russia, things have been another story), and much of it was due to popular revolt – people had just had enough. But millions of lives were ruined in the meantime.

The frightened, chaotic, dangerous America Trump is making every effort to convince us exists, does not. His remedies would probably not deliver the uniform model described above; we are too big and diverse a country for that. But we also have no need to turn desperately to a strongman/dictator to save us. Don’t be fooled into thinking that we do.

Tom Wolfson is a former senior U.S. diplomat who has lived and worked in six foreign countries, occasionally multiple times. His work representing the U.S. has included assignments at the United Nations, in the U.S. Congress, and with an international democracy-building organization. He is a member of The Steady State.

Founded in 2016, The Steady State is a nonprofit 501(c)(4) organization of more than 340 former senior national security professionals. Our membership includes former officials from the CIA, FBI, Department of State, Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security. Drawing on deep expertise across national security disciplines including intelligence, diplomacy, military affairs and law, we advocate for constitutional democracy, the rule of law and the preservation of America’s national security institutions.