What if the Soviet intervention was a blessing in disguise? It saved the myth that if the Soviets were not to intervene there would have been some flowering authentic democratic socialism and so on. I'm a little bit more of a pessimist there. I think that the Soviets – it's a very sad lesson – by their intervention saved the myth.

What if the Soviet intervention was a blessing in disguise? It saved the myth that if the Soviets were not to intervene there would have been some flowering authentic democratic socialism and so on. I'm a little bit more of a pessimist there. I think that the Soviets – it's a very sad lesson – by their intervention saved the myth.

I – and I still consider myself I'm sorry to tell you a Marxist and a Communist but I couldn't help noticing how all the best Marxist analyses are always analyses of a failure.

I – and I still consider myself I'm sorry to tell you a Marxist and a Communist but I couldn't help noticing how all the best Marxist analyses are always analyses of a failure.

You could say in a vulgar Freudian way that I am the unhappy child who escapes into books. Even as a child I was most happy being alone. This has not changed.

You could say in a vulgar Freudian way that I am the unhappy child who escapes into books. Even as a child I was most happy being alone. This has not changed.