I've heard a lot of stories about ppl convicted with "anti Soviet agitation and propaganda", whose only fault was attempting to listen to foreign radio broadcasts. And they really did go to jail for that.
And as for "the socialist states not being dictatorships" - did you know there were soldiers set up along the Berlin wall by the Stasi or some else GDR service, whose orders were to shoot anyone who attempted to get over the wall to get to the other side (typically, it all was eastern Germans trying to escape from the "socialist paradise"), without a single warning... ?