The book however does no such thing. You gotta know before hand the Stalinist thing, the book itself does not actually describe how Stalin worked. Both Asimov and Orwell guessed in that matter, even if we assume Asimov have point.

Also, actual Stalin system was remarkably stable.

Finally, the system was that most of the time they don't watch. Only sometimes. Which would describe tech of 2021 quite accurately. It is 40 years later and pretty much that is what we got.