Totalitarian perpetrators relied on the public’s incredulity to shield their crimes

Evidence

Perhaps the greatest deliberate experiment in pervasive distrust was that of Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union during the purge years of the 1930s. Although the apparatus of those years was not fully dismantled soon thereafter, the war with Germany required enough cohesion to make such deep distrust harmful even to Stalin’s personal rule. Pol Pot’s rule of Cambodia similarly depended on radical use of distrust. In general, pervasive distrust is more quietly used than it was in these two dreadful cases. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 467 (#contradicts, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The immensity of crimes makes murderers’ lies more credible than victims’ truth; Totalitarian regimes can sustain themselves by deliberately cultivating pervasive distrust. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 467; Totalitarianism’s crimes were so improbable that specialists failed to grasp them — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1133

Related

• Totalitarian regimes can sustain themselves by deliberately cultivating pervasive distrust. (similarity 0.88)
• Totalitarian leaders used confessed, irreversible crimes to bind followers. (similarity 0.88)
• The KCIA exploited pre-existing societal distrust to consolidate power (similarity 0.84)
• Totalitarianism’s crimes were so improbable that specialists failed to grasp them (similarity 0.79)
• The immensity of crimes makes murderers’ lies more credible than victims’ truth (similarity 0.79)
• Power holders can deliberately manufacture distrust conditions to secure control (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Totalitarian regimes can sustain themselves by deliberately cultivating pervasive distrust. #contradicts (0.85) — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 467