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Overt cooperation with the west would, however, pose anew danger to the Soviet. How could the communist regime give up the ideological enemy that had served so well since the Bolshevik revolution in 1919 to stabilize its rule? Hero too, the Soviets were confronting a problem faced by all fear societies. On the one hand, they need lifeline from the outside, which necessitates cooperation with other states. On the other hand, maintaining a fear society almost always demands external enemies.

Smaller fear societies can easily resolve this dilemma by turning to larger ones  for support. The tynannical regime in North Korea has maintained power of decades because the Soviet union or China has provided it with the resources necessary to sustain a repressive rule over the North Korea people, while South Korea and Japan have served as the external enemies that justify that rwepression. Other satellites of the Soviet Union, such as Cuba and Hungary, survived during the Cold War by playing a similar game. They were bankrolled by Moscow and used America as an ideological foil.

Smaller fear societies can also to larger free societies for support. The Cold War made his strategy  possible for several dictators across the world, who used their opposition to commuinism to win support in the west. Here, the roles may have been reversed, with Washington underwriting the regine and Moscow serving as Public Enemy Number One, but the principle was the same: Plug into an outside source of power and mobilize people against an external enemy.

The problem for the Soviet Union was that it was at the top of the fear society food chain. There was no larger total itarian sponsor who could bail them out foot the bills. The only place they could turn for help was to the West – the very same West they had demonized for generation. In effect, the Soviets faced a seemingly irresolvable dilemma: The West would have to serve as both a friend and an enemy.

Excerpted from ‘The case for Democracy’ by Natan Sharansky