I came across this quote in the book I’m reading that I like quite a bit. It’s from Berthold Brecht on the occasion of the 1953 East German workers demonstration:

Following the June Seventeenth uprising
the secretary of the Writers’ League
had leaflets distributed on Stalin Allee
where one could read that the people
had forfeited the confidence of the government
and could regain it only through redoubled efforts.
Wouldn’t it be simpler under these circumstances
for the government to dissolve the people
and elect another one?