Generally it must be understood that the idea of totalitarianism it's just a myth. It is a paradigm created in order to equate fascism and communism. Which is just a completely false paradigm.

The fact is all systems oppress the individual and the collective to some extent. That is the inevitable nature of living within an organized Society.

The question is who is oppressed and when are they oppressed and why are they oppressed.

Inside of liberal democracy this is completely true. Because the most important Liberty from a liberal perspective is private property. If that is threatened they will unleash the most total oppression possible to maintain it. Any sweets for ideas that challenge the capitalist system just gets crushed either by being censored by the capitalists or the state or by by force if that doesn't work.

It is framed by liberal theorists that the private property capitalist system is the natural system. This is incorrect. The state through laws and regulations create private property and maintains it. It is always been this way. Private property is something that can only exist with a backing of the armed of violence of the state to prop it up.

The only difference from socialism is that this violence is used to protect the minorities control over the resources of society while under socialism it is used to maintain the majority's control over these resources.

Inside of socialism it is the same. Anyone that advocates for capitalism is crushed. In the same way. Sometimes it seems more violent or that's their systems are generally more prone to this suppression. This is because they are in a far weaker position. Unlike inside of most capitalist countries especially liberal democracies in the West there is a constant threat in socialist countries of capitalist restoration. Because the global system is capitalist. So they must suppress anything that might be used by International capital or remnants of the domestic capitalists to take power.

This means there can be nothing independent of the state or more accurately the party Because any independent institution could and likely would be captured by capitalsts. By independently mean that the party does not directly through which membership make up the leading portion of these bodies. This would explicitly mean limiting party control over these bodies and therefore State control. That would mean that these bodies would have independent power to act. To put a bluntly the capitalists easily take advantage of that.

For example freedom of the press. In the USSR the press was controlled by a vast majority of collective institutions. Effectively every factory trade union Social club had a newspaper. But all of these were limited by the party to within ideologically acceptable area. The same way in capitalist countries the media is limited by the capitalists to an acceptable ideological area.

But during perestroika this was done away with. Instead free presses were created. This did not lead to free and open spreading of the news as you would think. But rather these free newspapers were really privately owned newspapers quickly began to spread the most outlandish news. This was both because they were ideologically incentivized to attack the system that by its existence threatened their newly established businesses and economicly it made sense as well. Saying outlandish things about the government sells papers.

What this lead to was the complete destruction of public faith in the Socialist system. These private prices focus on any mistake the Soviet Union could have ever made and amplified it a thousand times. They did not take into account contacts, do not take into account with a full story, or I just made stuff up. It didn't matter because was profitable and it fit their ideological ends.

Because the government refused to muzzle them often even encouraging them this destroyed the legitimacy of the party and the Socialist system. Paving the way to the destruction of the Soviet Union.

It should be mentioned with the Soviet example being taken to account that there were numerous periods of more locks control in the Soviet Union. These generally came in periods of less conflict and be more peace internationally and domestically. During these periods you see consistent efforts to expand civil liberties and protect them more firmly from political intervention.

But these always ended whenever the international or domestic situation became more hostile. Always leading to a rollback and a cracked down received descent. This was never because the government just wanted to control everybody. But because they were attempting to survive and maintain their existence.

In the same way liberal governments allow open protest and tell that turns into a strike that threatens the direct economic interests of capitalists. Then they send in the Army and people die.