This is disingenuous as a counter-argument because it's never been possible at this scale — perhaps excepting the Stasi. The sentiment has arisen because:
1) yes, people are more likely to fight it.
2) it's being done at an unprecedented and very intrusive scale.
Wiretapping required more labor on all fronts. Mail snooping the same.
If the "East" isn't fighting this, it might simply be because they see no recourse with their less democratic institutions. (I'm borrowing from you for this last point, I'd never presume the West to be as democratic as we'd like to believe.)
I can't speak for Europe, but in the west, a vast majority of people already accept that the government is doing mass surveillance, and they think it's a good thing. It is similar in China, India,etc.. from what I understand. I don't know enough about europe.
This scale has been possible since at least the mid 00's (20 years now , technically a historical fact). consider that most of the files in snowden's leak were from around '08.