One observation as I travel and lecture in the Republic of Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan is that people there who defend the old system do so much more forthrightly than those who champion them in the West.
Those who favor collectivism in the West tend to soften its tenets considerably. They don’t talk so much about ruling others but about how they need help. They don’t speak of how most others are stupid but of how the system deceives them. And leadership is needed to protect them from such deception.
The few defenders of the old regime in the former Soviet bloc countries I have visited are more direct than Western collectivists: Most people are stupid and need the smart ones among us to tell them what to do, how to live, and what goals to pursue. It is not equality or community that is important but being made to do what is right. And that is something only the bright people know. So they should rule, period, whatever the results.
"The few defenders," he says. People I know, who've spent a considerable amount of time in the old East Germany, tell me that the people running things there are the same people who used to run things, so that, even though things are slowly improving, there is still an air of authoritarianism about the place whenever you're dealing with the government.
As Machan says, there are few overt defenders or promoters of Communism, but the culture it created is still there.
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