Description

Twenty years ago the Berlin Wall fell, marking the collapse
of Soviet communism. The failure of the communist
system was not merely economic and political;
it was a moral failure as well. Over time communism created
a deep disillusionment and revulsion among those who lived
under it. The diminished sense of legitimacy of the ruling elite
in the Soviet Union and Soviet bloc countries contributed to
the unraveling of those systems as well.

At the same time, there is a remarkable lack of moral
concern in the West with the atrocities committed under
communist systems, including the tens of millions of people
who perished as a result of communist policies. By contrast
there has been a great deal of impassioned condemnation
of the outrages of Nazism. The most important reason
for treating Nazism and communism differently has been
the perception that communist crimes were unintended
consequences of the pursuit of lofty goals whereas the goals
of Nazism themselves were unmitigated evil.

Western intellectuals who had once idealized the Soviet
Union have done little soul searching regarding the roots of
their beliefs. The long association of idealism with animosity
toward commerce and capitalism among Western intellectuals
has contributed to a reluctance to criticize a system ostensibly
established in opposition to the values they abhorred.



Public attitudes in former communist countries have been
conflicted because of the arguable complicity of many citizens
in keeping the old system in power. A predominant attitude
in Eastern Europe and Russia toward the former communist
systems has been a mixture of oblivion, denial, and repression.

Contemporary Western attitudes toward the fall of the
Soviet system suggest that political beliefs endure when they
are widely shared and can satisfy important emotional needs.