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Article: Why socialism refuses to die.
- Article from:
- National Review
- Article date:
- April 13, 1992
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1992 National Review, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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THE immediate reaction to the collapse of the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe was that morally and intellectually socialism was now bankrupt. But it did not take long for a counteroffensive to begin. One heard the argument that the "barbaric Russians" had never properly understood the lofty humanitarianism of Karl Marx, that Stalin had perverted the sublime ideals of Lenin.
The disintegration of the USSR did not spell the end of the socialist creed, of the socialist parties, or even of socialist convictions and tendencies within non-socialist political movements. (Some benighted people flirt with "social democracy," unaware that it was the radical wing of ...