[arethuza]

"If you upset some big shot in the communist party, or were just a troublemaker, it went onto your file"

In the UK in the 1960s and 1970s upsetting a large company could get you investigated by MI5 and you could go on their files.

See: The Black Door: Spies, Secret Intelligence and British Prime Ministers by Richard Aldrich & Rory Cormac

[Mind you I'd rather have the attention of the Security Service than the Stasi - but the behaviour is similar, treating dissent as insurrection].

[RobertoG]

"In the UK in the 1960s and 1970s [..] could get you investigated by MI5 and you could go on their files."

That's discrimination. Luckily, they solved the problem in a clever way: now we are all in their files.

[js8]

Even though I agree it can be true in some cases, I think the extent with which this happens is incomparable to dictatorships (and especially the ones with state-owned enterprises). In capitalism, while the interests of large corporations are sometimes aligned with the interests of the government, they are still somewhat competing with each other and they form different hierarchies.

[pavel_lishin]

And in the United States, if too many of your friends were suspected of being communists, etc.

[pekk]

While this was bad by US standards, it is in no way comparable to the Stasi or the Gulags.

[pavel_lishin]

Sure, I was making the comparison to the UK.

[Pica_soO]

While this species is bad by Earth standards, it is in no way comparable to the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal. Get some perspective.