In “Part II” of Dostoevsky’s Demons, Verkhovensky (Pyotr Stepanovich) attempts on several occasions to entice Stavrogin (Nikolai Vsevolodovich) into becoming the leader of the revolutionary group, promising him power and that it will be an easy task because Stavrogin’s high class standing makes him more reputable, so people will be more likely to follow and form a camaraderie around him. However, Stavrogin counters Verkhovensky’s idea of political groups being built on camaraderie, instead suggesting that manipulating people to come together over fear and having them enact misdeeds is a stronger binding agent for a cause, which is an tactic many historians note that totalitarian regimes have used in the past to gain control over citizens. In response to Verkhovensky’s suggestion, Stavrogin says, “All this officialdom and sentimentality – it’s good glue, but there’s one thing better still: get four members of a circle to bump off a fifth on the pretense of his being an informer, and with this shed blood you’ll immediately tie them together in a single knot,” (Dostoevsky, 385-386). It is Stavrogin’s opinion that manipulating the majority of a group into believing that another member is a traitor in some way, in this case giving information to the opposing group, and convincing them to get rid of that member will tie them not only closer together but also even closer to the leader. That is because they will one, trust that their leader is always truthful and has the group’s best interest in mind, because why else would the leader warn them of a traitor. And two, by enacting a misdeed together, from shunning a person to even possibly murder, they are now all at fault for something, and if one tries to leave on the grounds of the others doing bad things they didn’t agree to do, the others can call out the dissenter for being no better than the rest of them, for they engaged in the misdeed as well. The manipulation effectively gives more power to the leader and traps the followers in the group they are forming. That tactic isn’t original to Stavrogin, however, because historians Stéphane Courtois and Nicolas Werth discuss how totalitarian regimes like the Nazis in Germany, the Soviet Union in Russia, and the Chinese Communist Party used similar tactics to gain power and entrap followers in The Black Book of Communism.