Soviet propaganda required its citizens to at least feign conviction. Putin’s apparatus, on the other hand, has perfected the production of apathy – and thus made possible the mass murder of people.
In the terrible winter of 1932/33, brigades of Communist Party activists – from Moscow, Kyiv and Kharkiv, but also from neighboring towns – went from house to house in Ukrainian villages in search of food. They rummaged in the gardens, breaking down walls and poking down chimneys with long poles to look for hidden crops. They took livestock and confiscated tomato seedlings. After such raids, Ukrainian peasants ate rats, frogs and boiled grass. They nibbled on tree bark and leather. About four million died of starvation.