This is a flawed question and you're looking for an answer to fit your idea of an answer rather than asking an earnest question.
The question in itself is anachronistic - no, society during the 1900s couldn't possibly be like any other time period since no time period is the same. Especially since the most fundamental part of society (the form of production) changed rather recently (around the end of the 1700s). That is the most fundamental lesson of history. Everything changes, nothing stays the same. To quote Herakleitos - "You cannot step into the same river twice."
I can however vaguely answer the question that I think you're asking:
And that is no. Hannah Arendt wrote extensively on this topic (I think her analysis is wrong, but I think it's the sort of answer you're looking for), and makes a very clear distinction between the means of control over the citizens in more primitive and more developed societies. She calls the fascist regimes and communist dictatorships "Totalitarian states". In these states you are not only under direct threat of violence if you as a citizen perform an illegal act, there are also illegal thoughts - everyday life becomes a panopticon.
We of course have thinkers who thought thoughts that would later be appropriated to fit into the mold of modernity and post-feudal economics like Machiavelli, but their thoughts aren't the same thing as the actual practices of governments of the time.
Source: Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951).
Because modernity, we have more understanding of what the people under Hitler and Stalins thumb actually went through.
I don't know what definition of "modernity" you have, but many (among them Hannah Arendt) would say that things like the holocaust was caused in direct consequence of modernity.
Source: Adorno, Theodor W. Horkheimer, Max. Dialectics of enlightenment (1944).
ut the idea of rights and civil liberties is very new
No it isn't, it's been around since at least the early middle ages, probably for much longer in some form or another; especially since the natural rights of the middle ages was inspired by roman law texts. Who in return were inspired by greek philosophy.
Source: Tierney, Brian. The Idea of Natural Rights (1997).