When you read this fascinating article from two well spoken, educated, convincing people, you should try and keep in mind the context of 1934. Stalin had only o

When you read this fascinating article from two well spoken, educated, convincing people, you should try and keep in mind the context of 1934. Stalin had only ordered the execution of a few million people, and the system probably had barely killed 10 million or so through starvation, gulags, and routine police brutality. You could be absent from work for a whole day before automatically losing your job, apartment, commodity tickets, and meal tickets, and facing starvation. It wasn't until 1938 that being 20 minutes late became an automatic firing event, too. Of course, missing your quota could already bring a treason charge. This is an intelligent, well meaning man - a tremendously well read scholar of economics and political theory - who honestly understood that the only way to achieve real Communism involved the deaths of millions and millions of people... And considered this a reasonable sacrifice.