Well, I have lived 7 years as a child under dictatorship and we've executed our dictator without a fair trial, on Christmas Day. Saddam Hussein in particular became extra paranoid after watching this particular execution on TV.

I do know a thing or two about the difference - and one has to understand the mentality of people living under a certain political system - the system only survives when there's enough acceptance, from a majority no less and acceptance happens because that's what people grow up with. That's why under stalinism at least there was so much emphasis on propaganda.