With this decree, the Cheka was unleashed upon the population, indiscriminately arresting and torturing thousands of people, especially intellectuals. The Cheka, today called the KGB, has grown over time, and now penetrates every sphere of Soviet society. It contains hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people and maintains a vast network of informants.7 Dissidents are regularly arrested by the KGB and tortured in mental institutions.8 The country is held in an iron grip of fear. The use of terror to consolidate power has been adopted by many, if not all, Communist regimes. He modeled the workings of his futuristic police state in 1984 after the Bolsheviks, who practiced all the repressive measures that Orwell's imaginary Oceania used.
Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation.
After a Communist government secures control over a people, it usually sets out to construct the utopia it has promised them. This often satisfies the socialistic intellectuals who may have been spared in the initial purges, as well as the masses, who often believe the party line. Many are convinced that their economic and political hardships are merely temporary, and will fade away as the Communist paradise evolves. In the new atmosphere of fear and lofty promises, dissent tends to abate. The government then will attempt to implement its policies, which usually include the complete abolition of private industry and free trade, the collectivization of farmlands, and the bureaucratization of the economy.