The first time the Nazis imposed censorship so that people couldn't do that. We should be wary of following in those footsteps.

Pretty sure millions were already in Soviet gulags with Pravda and Izvestiya cranking out official propaganda before anyone became a Nazi.

If you want to understand the terror of total state censorship practiced "the first time", then look to Lenin specifically and communism more generally.

Alternately, one can argue this climate of fear and systematic repression was present during the French revolution, but not localized to the entire state.

Communist censorship was merely a copy of Catholic censorship from earlier times. It's not like Commies invented it.

Censorship is also bad when communists do it, yes.