Political Pilgrims

Why did so many distinguished Western Intellectuals from G.B. Shaw to J.P. Sartre, and. closer to home, from Edmund Wilson to Susan Sontag admire various communist systems, often in their most repressive historical phases? How could Stalin''s Soviet Union, Mao''s China, or Castro''s Cuba appear at one time as both successful modernizing societies and the fulfillments of the boldest dreams of socia...