WALL STREET JOURNAL: …Conquest’s major themes were reality and delusion. “The Great Terror” (1968) was the first and still definitive treatment of Stalin’s purges, gulags, show trials and secret police, meticulously documenting the enormity of the death toll. “Harvest of Sorrow” (1986) chronicled what he called the “terror famines” that followed agricultural collectivization.
When sources inside Russia were few and most Kremlinologists were oblivious, these classics contributed immensely to understanding the nature of the Communist project. They also helped shape the response that won the Cold War; Reagan and Thatcher were among his readers…
“The mere existence of the U.S.S.R., and its ideas, distorted the way in which many people over the whole world thought about society, the economy, human history,” Conquest wrote in these pages in 1992. “Many were seduced by the comfortable word ‘socialism,’ even to the extent of rejecting the Western ideas of free discussion, political compromise, plural society, piecemeal practicality, change without chaos.”.. (more)
EDITOR: Just as one can today reasonably assert that Communism has done far more good than harm to China, in the depths of the Great Depression and the immediate aftermath of World War II, the merits of Communism versus Capitalism was justifiably open for discussion.
However, Socialism vs. Capitalism was a far larger topic.
Just as the USA adopted a mixed economy of Capitalism and Socialism during and after the Depression, over the past two decades China has come to embrace most of the elements of Capitalism. What seems less likely is that they will become a more open society.
Robert Conquest deserves much honor.
