Originally Posted by Scourge
Just to add to the above. There's a tried and true pattern that allows a totalitarian dictatorship in Asia to have that kind of control over a population. First, in order to stunt free thought, the intellectual class is killed off and/or "reeducated". Second, the family unit is broken down by sending family members including young children away from each other to disparate parts of the country, sometimes to not see their other family members for years, sometimes to never see them again. Third is to starve the population, using communalism as an excuse for everyone to have as little rationed to them as possible. Fourth is to subject all members of the population to hours daily of propaganda in town meeting fashion. Fifth is to set up a system where neighbors rat on neighbors for "political crimes", which are often ways for petty bickering between people who do not like each other to be resolved in the worst possible way. All of this is reinforced at gunpoint or fear of imprisonment.
