Like everything else that took place in the Soviet Union, this upsurge of spontaneous fury had been conceived and planned well in advance.
pgs. 24-25, Everything Flows
Elections to the Supreme Soviet were planned by Stalin in exactly the same way; information was collected, deputies were chosen – and from then on the spontaneous nomination of these deputies went ahead as planned, as did their election campaigns and eventual victory in national elections. Stormy protest meetings were planned in exactly the same way – as were outbursts of popular fury and emotional expressions of brotherly friendship.
…
– and it was in this way, after long and complex interrogations, that accountants, engineers, and lawyers who until recently had not for one moment suspected themselves of counterrevolutionary activity came to sign statements confessing to all kinds of acts of espionage and terrorism.
The most important principle of the State he constructed is that it is a State without freedom.
pg. 192, Everything Flows
In this country, huge factories, artificial seas, canals, and hydroelectric power stations do not serve people; they serve a State without freedom.
In this State a man cannot sow what he wants to sow. A man is not the master of the field on which he works; he is not the owner of the apple trees he grows or of the milk he produces. What the earth bears, it bears according to the instructions of the State without freedom.
In this State not only are the national minorities deprived of their freedom but so is the Russian nation itself. Where there is no individual freedom, there can be no national freedom – since national freedom is, above all, the freedom of the individual human being.
In this State there is no such thing as society. Society is founded on people’s free intimacy and free antagonism – and in a State without freedom, free intimacy and free hostility are unthinkable.
…
And it is truly astonishing that Stalin, after so totally destroying freedom, continued to be afraid of it.
