Re: Soviet balance sheet

[PJM0930 <PJM0930@xxxxxxx>]

1) Large numbers of communists (who have been cited on the list as such
a source of progressivism)
felt completely betrayed and manipulated by their leadership and by
their soviet higer-ups.
How much of the party left in 1950's alone shortly after the Kruschev
revelations? 2/3's? 9/10's?

The really
important lesson of American Communism is how so many good, smart and
effective people could be
drawn into believing a lie in order to support a reality that they would have
found abhorrent. That they were duped and
betrayed does not in anyway contribute to the positive side of the
historical balance sheet (just the opposite)
everything they accomplished has been called into question by their
association with Stalinism.
-Paul Meyer