In my study of communist societies, I came to realize that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate. Therefore, the less it corresponded to reality, the better. When people are forced to remain silent while they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to participate in evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, or even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control.

-Theodore Dalrymple