Micro-Communism.

Winston Churchill said that the Soviets didn't want war, they only wanted the spoils of war without the actual fighting.
He was right of course, and this is what protected the West from the Soviet Union for 50 years, our preparedness to fight.

So, the Soviet Union took every opportunity to score bloodless, 'prestige' victories that would render material benefit to their regime, either by expanding the areas they could squeeze, or by encouraging their populations to believe in the lies.

Micro-Communism? What do I mean by this?

Well, the Soviet Union behaved in a certain way; but none of this behaviour was removed from our knowledge of individual human behaviours.
For example, when walking down a street, you might see a person coming the other way, and quiet rightly choose to pass them on the right or the left; then the next time you look, that person is back in your path.

This is pure Communism;
they want to push you around; they want to make you do something for them, without actually having to give an order; they want to demoralise you(rob you of emotional content) without any overt threat or violence, but by using any unrealised discrepancy between your avowed social principles and the actual mechanism of your psychology.

And if you just keep heading straight for them, they may or may not choose to escalate.

But in the vast majority of cases (including many psychopathological and criminal people), they will give way, as the Soviet Union did over Cuba and a dozen other places.

This is what Rand meant when she characterised Communism as plain, old Human evil.