There is no way anyone can feel safe in a dictatorship, even those who support it completely. Without the rule of law, political reprisals and denuciations become instruments of career advancement. It becomes impossible to say anything critical of anyone or anything, no matter how innocent or true or necessary, without risking it being labeled a subversive act or an unprovoked attack. Government quickly degenerates into rule by informants, bullies and corruption become rampant. The easiest way to eliminate an opponent is to report him to the authorities, and honest members of the authorities have no choice but to persecute the innocent, even if they know they are innocent, because to do so would make them appear to be collaborators. People in any position of power are constantly threatened by their rivals, and they must be ruthless in self-defense. Eventually, only those who are ruthless get to stay in power. Conversely, those who choose to relinquish power get no safety either, they simply become available scapegoats for those who wish to cover their mistakes. It becomes not a government, but a Mafia.

It is also important to realize that this is not a political or ideological judgement on my part, it is a disease which can infect any dictatorship, of the left or right. If you look carefully you can see it to varying degrees in other institutions too: prisons, the military, private enterprise, churches, schools, anywhere human beings join themselves into hierarchical organizations without the protection of law and custom and self government. Even democracies suffer from this, although it is rarely as complete and uncontrollable as in countries under the control of a single leader. It is not a function of political philosophy, and one should be very suspicious of those who try to convince you that it is, for they are more often interested in establishing conditions more suitable for their own ambitions. It is a consequence of human avarice and greed and lust for power and it infects our species, some more than others, like a disease, like syphillis.

Human beings were designed by evolution to live in small family bands of at most a few dozen individuals. Other forms of social organization may be necessary, but they should always be viewed with extreme suspicion.