Officially admitting known evils can destabilize a regime more than the evils themselves

Evidence

It is not as if anyone in the party was unaware of the atrocities and corruption carried out in its name, but Khrushchev’s announcement made it impossible to believe any more that the big Other was ignorant of them. — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 95

Categorization

• BMF: The mechanism — an open, official admission (as opposed to tolerated private knowledge) collapsing a system — evokes the moment in Zamyatin’s We where the Benefactor’s unveiled frauds become formally known and the entire symbolic order of the One State trembles, decaying to open rebellion.
• XREF: connects to: Totalitarian rule deliberately maintains a gap between official words and actual deeds — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 930

Related

• Official acknowledgment of selected crimes can obscure a regime’s total criminality. (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Totalitarian rule deliberately maintains a gap between official words and actual deeds #expands (0.75) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 930