The Tragedy of Liberation by Frank Dikotter

“The key to understanding the appeal of communism, despite the grim reality on the ground, lay in the fact that it allowed so many followers to believe that they were participants in an historic process of transformation, contributing to something much bigger and better than themselves, or anything that had come before. IN a world full of workers who set new records and soldiers who used their bodies to block enemy fire, everyone was encouraged to become a hero. The propaganda machine ceaselessly glorified heroic workers, peasants and soldiers, held up as so many models for emulation.”

-Frank Dikotter, 2013