JamesMason, you are correct, it IS naive to equate what’s going on in the USA today with what happened in the Soviet Russia.  Things in many ways are much WORSE in today's USA than in Soviet Russia!  The Soviets never had nearly the capacity (nor perhaps even the desire) for total surveillance that those in power in the USA do today, and could only dream about having such detailed and comprehensive information on their every subject such as the power elite in the USA have on every one of us today.  

Also, during at least the second half of the USSR's existence, the Soviet government's monitoring and control over their subjects was actually slowly diminishing, whereas the trend in the USA today is in the other direction, towards more and more surveillance and less and less freedom.  Even the current level of governmental surveillance and control in this country would have likely been considered both impossible and an abomination by almost anyone just 100 years ago.