Explaining Communism's Appeal

Though the fall of the Soviet Union occurred less than a decade ago, it already seems like an event from a remote and entirely different historical epoch. Soviet communism didn't just collapse. It vanished as if it had been a bad dream, not a powerful totalitarian system that terrorized its subject peoples and menaced its geopolitical rivals. The apparition-like quality of Soviet communism was actually a distinctive aspect of its essential character. It was only as an idea--an ideological illusion--that communism was able both to conceal its brutality and to command the loyalty of intellectuals throughout the world. The idea died with the system it had affirmed. Yet how it was able to live as long as it did and to win the fervent belief of so many people remains perhaps the greatest enigma of the twentieth century

Appeal · Communism · Dream · Geopolitics · Ideology · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Soviet union · Subject (documents · History · Law · Psychology · Soviet and Russian History

• Understanding Social Phenomena Linked to Religion

  Open Access•Sergio García-Magariño, Òscar Prieto Flores et al.•Religions•2023

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