THE ORIGINAL SIN OF THE INTELLECT
59
It is no accident that those radio programs which carry eco–
nomic, scientific, or cultural information have a much more power–
ful impact than all political propaganda, especially among the
intelligentsia, the students, scientists and artists, even among those
belonging to the Party. The Soviet power itself can only be con–
quered by might. Communism as theory,
Weltanschauung,
and reli–
gion, however, which rationalizes every absurdity of practice, can
only be conquered through the one thing for which there is no
place in the system : liberty of the personality, the freedom of the
spirit. And through that other power, which together with liberty
first confers humanity upon man, which ensures the freedom of the
other, because it respects him and recognizes itself in him: love and
compassion.
The best way to fight Communism is to let those who are
suffering under it, and those fallen intellectuals whose soul is still
alive, experience understanding and sympathy, love and help, from
the free world-those qualities, in short, that are foreign to the
system.
If
I think back to the Moscow prison cell, I find that neither
there nor at the Academy, neither from Soviet officers in the camps
nor in the East Berlin Central Committee, nor anywhere in the Party
did I ever hear the words "love" or "compassion." They are missing
in the vocabulary of Communism just as they are missing in the
History of the CPSU(B).
They don't even exist as concepts. Stalin
knows why.
(Translated from the German by John F. Powers)
