How Governments Tighten Their Grip: What Americans Can Learn from Soviet and Chinese Repression
These lessons from the Cold War are relevant today
What happens when governments tighten control? From the Soviet Union’s surveillance state to China’s extreme censorship, authoritarian regimes follow familiar patterns—eroding free speech, silencing dissent, and restricting civil liberties. With Project 2025 here, the U.S. faces similar warning signs.
Let’s look at the problem, then come up with some strategies
Fear is a language all its own, but not all of us speak it fluently. For those of us who grew up in the West, the relationship between the individual and the state is profoundly different from what many experienced under Soviet rule.
While we may gripe about government inefficiencies or policies, the deep-seated fear of a regime that controls every aspect of our life — down to what we dare glance at in public — is almost impossible for us in the West to comprehend.
Yet, understanding this fear is crucial as we navigate our relationships with other authoritarian regimes today, especially as:
China tightens its grip on its citizens and expands its reach beyond its borders
Prime Minister Modi in India increases surveillance on those who oppose him in India
Trump’s administration plans increased surveillance and arrests of citizens as Project 2025 plans come on board in the U.S., in the form of Agenda 47.
I can see the writing on the wall. Why? I remember my own experience vividly during a trip to Moscow in the late 1990s, where I first encountered the lingering fear of the Soviet regime…
Myasnitskaya Street
I was visiting Moscow in the late 1990s, almost a decade after the collapse of the Communist bloc. As I walked down Myasnitskaya Street, a middle-aged woman in a tattered fur coat accosted me. “Don’t look!” she cried. “Turn around! Don’t look! It’s not safe!” She was panicked, distraught. From experience, I thought she was having a mental health breakdown — the Reagan administration’s closure of state mental health hospitals in the 1980s gave every American firsthand knowledge of how a behavioral health crisis unfolds on a city street.
Others joined her, however. I speak Russian well enough to get by, but I couldn’t untangle what was going on.
“Don’t you get it?” someone finally said, and inclined his head in a subtle, almost unnoticeable motion toward the large yellow office building across the street. “This is about that.”
He didn’t say its name. He didn’t dare look in its direction. What could inspire that kind of fear in a casual passersby?
It was the Lubyanka, the KGB headquarters, into which tens of thousands of innocent Soviet citizens were taken, never to return.
I couldn’t understand the reactions of these people. Sure, I had studied plenty of Russian history and literature. I knew this was a storied building built on the bones of tens of thousands, with the weight of state-sanctioned police terror behind it — but come on.
This was a decade after the demise of the government that held it in place. How could it still inspire such dread?
Let’s Go Back to the 1980s
During the Cold War, I was an Intelligence Analyst and linguist. As such, I knew a number of dissidents and émigrés from the Soviet bloc. They differed in personality and culture — coming from different areas of the Communist world — but they shared a common fear of the authorities, a fear of uniformed police, and an absolute terror of a midnight knock on the door by the secret police.
They also kept their neighbors at arm’s length, because of the culture of citizen-informants the Soviet governments instilled and fostered among the people.
Though it’s over three decades since the fall of the Berlin Wall, that fear is still in place; it’s generational at this point.
The Soviets criminalized aspects of economic and social life, such as tardiness and minor workplace mistakes. People could be arrested, sentenced in a mock trial, and sent to a camp for stealing bread, having anti-Soviet thoughts, being well-off peasants, and failing to report any suspicious activity. — Milena Nikolova, Olga Popova, and Vladimir Otrachshenko: Past political repression creates long-lasting mistrust
Few of us can understand that kind of pervasive, lasting fear. But we should respect it, and more importantly, let it instruct us about the lasting power of state control and the echoes of authoritarianism in today’s world.
When I think about the fear I saw in Moscow that day,
I can’t help but be reminded of China’s growing state control and how it wields similar power over its people — both at home and abroad. China has taken full advantage of modern technology, using digital surveillance systems and social credit scores to monitor and control its citizens’ behavior. As we discussed in my recent piece, “Erasing My Words: The Subtle Fears Behind Conversations with My Child’s Mandarin Teacher,” Chinese citizens, dissidents, and even those of Chinese descent living in Western countries face a different but equally chilling version of state control.
The CCP’s surveillance and intimidation tactics, which extend across borders, bear eerie similarities to the fear that haunted the streets of Moscow decades ago.
India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi offers another example of a democratic nation veering toward authoritarianism. Modi’s government has been accused of stifling dissent, limiting press freedom, and weaponizing legal systems to target political opponents and critics. The Citizenship Amendment Act and the revocation of Kashmir’s special status have sparked widespread protests, only to be met with crackdowns and arrests. Journalists and activists often face intimidation, and digital surveillance is on the rise. While India is still the world’s largest democracy, the erosion of civil liberties under Modi’s leadership signals a troubling shift that parallels the tactics of more overtly authoritarian regimes.
On a local level (for me, a writer in the U.S.) the Trump administration is rolling back many civil liberties we traditionally enjoyed. Plans are in place to increase government surveillance of private citizens, so our ability to protest and participate in free speech may soon be limited in a way we have not experienced since the beginning of the nation.
In the United States, recent political developments suggest that we are not immune to the allure of centralized power.
Project 2025/Agenda47 line items, including solidifying control in Oval Office, reducing checks and balances installed by our Founding Fathers, as well as increased surveillance and the targeting of dissent echo the same playbook authoritarian regimes have used for decades.
What we’re witnessing is not just a shift in policy but a restructuring of the relationship between the government and its citizens — one that risks transforming trust (or distrust, as the case may be) into fear. As these changes come online, it’s essential to ask: how much freedom are we willing to trade in the name of security and control?
Will we remain lucky?
The lessons from Soviet and Chinese authoritarianism are clear: unchecked state power leads to fear, repression, and the erosion of fundamental freedoms. The fear I witnessed on Myasnitskaya Street, decades after the Soviet Union’s collapse, was a stark reminder of the enduring grip of totalitarianism on its people. This fear, carried through generations, highlights how quickly personal freedoms can be stripped away under authoritarian rule.
In the U.S., Project 2025/Agenda47 raises alarms for similar reasons. With proposals that include expanded surveillance, targeting of journalists, and suppression of protests, the potential for a chilling effect on free speech and civil liberties is undeniable. Given recent infiltration of citizens’ private information by DOGE thugs, we can see this already happening. The ACLU’s warning about warrantless data collection and federal crackdowns on dissent mirrors tactics once employed by regimes like the Soviet Union and now perfected by modern authoritarian states like China.
This recent election has underscored how fragile our democratic norms are. What once seemed unimaginable — a rollback of freedoms that have defined the American experience — now seem inevitable. If these proposals come to fruition, we risk moving toward a society where fear becomes a dominant force, silencing voices and dismantling the trust between citizens and their government.
The chilling lesson is this: repression is not just a relic of history; it is a tool of control that evolves with technology and power. As authoritarian structures adapt, so must our vigilance. It is vital to remember that freedom, once lost, is not easily regained. The echoes of Soviet fear, amplified by China’s modern surveillance state, should serve as a clarion call. If we value our liberties, we must learn from history and resist the allure of authoritarian control in all its forms.
Here’s How You Can Fight Back
Sure, the future looks scary right now, but history teaches us that people who stand together can fight and win despite seemingly overwhelming odds.
Want to make a real impact? Find the people fighting for democracy—and help them win.
Organizations I Support:
ACLU – Defending civil liberties and constitutional rights.
Wikimedia Foundation – Protecting free knowledge, even as billionaires try to control what you learn.
End Citizens United – Fighting the dark money corrupting our political system.
Looking for more ways to help? Research grassroots movements, independent media, and local advocacy groups. Every action counts. Every voice matters.
Oh, and please share your wisdom! Know of other great organizations? Drop them in the comments! Let’s build a network of resistance—because democracy only survives if we fight for it.
This article was originally published on Medium on December 7, 2024. You can read the original here.
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Another great article. Right on point. Thank you!
Must do what we can before it’s way too late.