A fantastic quote from British #socialist and philosopher Bertrand Russell, who in 1920 after visit to #USSR wrote:
The effect of Bolshevism as a revolutionary hope is greater outside Russia than within the Soviet Republic.
Written over 100 ago, this observation perfectly captures the spirit of today’s pro-Russian tankies and believers in “Russia as defender of conservatism and family values”.
Russell then goes on to explain the context - one, he was with his own eyes:
Grim realities have done much to kill hope among those who are subject to the dictatorship of Moscow. Yet even within Russia, the Communist party, in whose hands all political power is concentrated, still lives by hope, though the pressure of events has made the hope severe and stern and somewhat remote. It is this hope that leads to concentration upon the rising generation. Russian Communists often avow that there is little hope for those who are already adult, and that happiness can only come to the children who have grown up under the new régime and been moulded from the first to the group-mentality that Communism requires.
More about Russells’ book: https://write.as/arcadian/a-socialist-view-on-the-beginning-of-the-bolshevik-revolution
