How do totalitarian governments treat the rights and liberties of their people?

This type of government is run by a dictator who doesn't care about the people in his country beyond what they can do for him. There are no rights and no Liberty in a country like this and they control the smallest things. In Romania to get a light bulb a person had to ask the government and owning a typewriter was against the law. Millions die because they made a comment to the wrong person about the government.