I had all kinds of answers ready for the commissions that called me in and asked me what had made me become a Communist, but what had attracted me to the movement more than anything, dazzled me, was the feeling (real or apparent) of standing near the wheel of history. For in those days we actually did decide the fate of men and events, especially at the universities; in those early years there were very few Communists on the faculty, and the Communists in the student body ran the universities almost single-handed, making decisions on academic staffing, teaching reform, and the curriculum. The intoxication we experienced is commonly known as the intoxication of power, but (with a bit of good will) I could choose less severe words: we were bewitched by history; we were drunk with the thought of jumping on its back and feeling it beneath us; admittedly, in most cases the result was an ugly lust for power, but (as all human affairs are ambiguous) there was still (and especially, perhaps, in us, the young), an altogether idealistic illusion that we were inaugurating a human era in which man (all men) would be neither outside history, nor under the heel of history, but would create and direct it. Milan Kundera
About This Quote

During the early 1900s, there was a time in history known as the “red terror.” The Russian government sent many people to mental institutions after they were diagnosed with “Communist” thoughts. It wasn’t long before all the so-called “Communists” in Russia were either in prison or had committed suicide. This was a period of violence where people were killed for having communist thoughts. This quote is about how people are drawn into the world of politics because it fascinates them, but then get disappointed when they find out that politics are not quite what they thought it would be.

Source: The Joke

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