Yeah, the concept is called Siege Socialism or Siege Communism. You can't really explore the boundless expanses of human possibility when you constantly have Western spies trying to put ebola in the school lunch supply for reasons that aren't measurably different from pure chaotic evil.
Like the Great Purge seems pretty insane and excessive until you remember that the USA and almost every European power invaded the USSR in 1918 and 1919 fighting for the Whites against the communists, and then you start to wonder if maybe the NKVD didn't have some kind of a point. (I still think the Great Purge was a mistake but I more or less understand why they did it and why it had a great deal of popular support at the time).
Who has a copy of the Volcel police warning? I can't remember how it started to search for it.