It was recognized early and has frequently been asserted that in totalitarian countries propaganda and terror present two sides of the same coin.
Propaganda is indeed part and parcel of " psychological warfare"; but terror is more. Terror continues to be used by totalitarian regimes even when its psychological aims are achieved: its real horror is that it reigns over a completely subdued population. . . Propaganda in other words, is one, and possibly the most important, instrument of totalitarianism for dealing with the non-totalitarian world: terror, on the contrary, is the very essence of its form of government. . . The similarities between this kind of terror and plain gangsterism are too obvious to be pointed out. . . More specific in totalitarian propaganda, however, than direct threats and crimes against individuals is the use of indirect, veiled, and menacing hints against all who will not heed its teachings and, later, mass murder perpetrated on "guilty" and "innocent" alike.
Terror is the realization of the law of movement; its chief aim is to make it possible for the force of nature or of history to race freely through mankind unhindered by any spontaneous human action.
Hannah Arendt, The Origins Of Totalitarianism, 1949
Propaganda And Terror
1Fear and terror are the hallmarks of tyrannical totalitarian regimes the world over. Just like Hitler admired Stalin for the way he used fear and terror to keep people in line, we now have a president who openly admires authoritarian tyrants all over the world who use fear and terror to keep their populations under control. Propaganda and terror are opposite sides of the same coin.