In my opinion, nothing has contributed so much to the corruption of the original idea of socialism as the belief that Russia is a socialist country and that every act of its rulers must be excused, if not imitated. And so for the last ten years, I have been convinced that the destruction of the Soviet myth was essential if we wanted a revival of the socialist movement.
George Orwell, Ian Angus, Sheila Davison (1998). “It is what I think, 1947-1948”, Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd