“In [totalitarianism] shortages of material goods, even of necessities, were not a drawback but a great advantage for the rulers. These shortages were not accidental to the terror, but one of its most powerful instruments. Not only did shortages keep people’s minds strictly on bread and sausage, and divert their energies to procuring them so that there was no time or inclination left over for subversion, but the shortages meant that people could be brought to inform, spy and betray each other very cheaply. . .”
Theodore Dalrymple, The Wilder Shores of Marx: Journeys in a Vanishing World