We can see – to use a neutral term – a plasticity of thought and survival strategies that, in my view, is not characteristic of just one period in history. Studying and understanding these cases also means becoming more aware of what people are capable of even today. It is not about condemnation – it is about an analysis of how people adapt, and what compromises and mental tricks they are willing to employ. After all, the regimes that collapsed thirty years ago did not rely solely on the skills of a few members of the ruling elite. Ultimately, even in the second decade of the 21st century, we can see – in Eastern Europe, in the territory of the former USSR, and in Latvia as well – adaptation strategies that, in truth, do not differ all that much from the communist period. Figuratively speaking, after the collapse of the USSR, we simply condemned totalitarianism, but somehow forgot, or perhaps did not want to understand, how this totalitarianism actually functioned. We limited ourselves to linking totalitarianism with individual "traitors", "executioners", "informers" and so on, light-heartedly concluding that it did not apply to us. It does apply.