I mean, that's a weird example to pick. Tzarist Russia is the second best police state in 20th century Russia. That doesn't make it very notable, except by the standards of pre-WWI Europe. And the fact that soldiers abandoned the tzar only serves to demonstrate he didn't use this lever of power. If the tzar had plundered the workers and peasants to pay his soldiers, he would have undoubtedly survived.

When Ukrainian pleasants were starving in 1932, did it cause any sort of disturbance? No. Why? Because the soft and pathetic Okhrana was replaced by the effective and ruthless Checka.