It reminded my of a quote by Milan Kundera in The Unbearable Lightness of Being: "Anyone who thinks that the Communist regimes of Central Europe are exclusivel

It reminded my of a quote by Milan Kundera in The Unbearable Lightness of Being: "Anyone who thinks that the Communist regimes of Central Europe are exclusively the work of criminals is overlooking a basic truth: The criminal regimes were made not by criminals but by enthusiasts convinced they had discovered the only road to paradise. They defended that road so valiantly that they were forced to execute many people. Later it became clear that there was no paradise, that the enthusiasts were therefore murderers." I found this in other places as well - e.g. in the autobiography of Jacek Kuroń (a figure in the Polish opposition against the communist regime, even though he was himself a socialist), culminating when he was in prison with a Nazi criminal. The later, even a decade or two after the war, was still convinced that he had been doing atrocities (he had no illusions about that) for a greater good (i.e. the new Pax Romana), a good that justifies anything.