Given that you had to join the party to be a teacher, and your whole job was pushing propaganda at children, yeah they are.
Being a cog in the machine still makes you part of the machine, even if you didn't directly do anything.
Being a cog in the machine still makes you part of the machine, even if you didn't directly do anything.
Fiction in the free world loves to say "You always have a choice", but the characters who learn this lesson tend to have much more power than others, be it physical strength, political power, or maybe just access to some important thing. Many people don't have a meaningful way to make a difference, and the cost is the livelihood of themselves and their families. And it ignores the local goodness of their action in favor the some vague affiliation with a bigger picture that they may not personally agree with.
I also think the whole analogy is entirely tangential.