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No one has ever adequately explained why men should want total power over others, or what satisfaction they derive from it.
Ian Grey rationalizes Stalin's oppression of the Russian people by pointing out that Stalin's methods were really no different than those of the tsars, and that the people were accustomed to the sort of treatment they received at the hands of Stalin and his gove
ment. Where is the logic in an argument that says murder and oppression are acceptable because they're traditional?
In this report we consider the sources of the terror in Russia and try to compare the oppression under the tsars with the oppression under consecutive Soviet rulers from Lenin to Brezhnev. We also try to answer the following question: do you believe that democracy and individual rights will be able to survive in the present Russian state?

Using terror as an instrument of political control is not solely a Communist phenomenon, however. Every technique of terror used by the Soviets was developed, practiced, and refined in prerevolutionary Russia. Soviet use of terror is simply the manifestation of a mentality traditional among Russian political elites. It is a mentality that considers social institutions with guarantees and norms sanctioned by law as unimportant and their manipulation for political reasons as quite permissible. It is a mentality engendered by five centuries of domination by the state’s technicians of terror, the secret police.
Soviet leaders are well versed in the use of political terror. Not terror in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) vein, but terror of a wholly homegrown variety not terror to cause anarchy, but terror to prevent it; not terror to topple a gove
ment, but terror to preserve their own. The political elite of the Soviet Union view terror as a flexible tool that can be used to control the population, stifle dissent, and perpetuate their power. They see in terror an effective instrument of political control.