Thanks - an excellent reflection on larger patterns, also unfolding recently elsewhere... You wrote "We were all told it was due to either the imperialist powers outside or the traitors within." A concise illustration of a core feature of all authoritarian governance - never run out of scapegoats. Unfortunately now we get to see how that plays out in the USA. Foreign threats alone are not enough; there have to be internal enemies also. Especially for an isolationist regime.