Like a lot of Americans, I'd always thought I knew all I needed to know about Marxism and communism. I'd had a vague idea that Marx had merely analyzed his contemporary society and prescribed social ownership for the ills of mankind. I'd gone along with the idea that Lenin had been faithful to the vision of Marx and Engels and that Stalin was the betrayer of the Utopian ideal. Now I was learning differently.

The seeds had all been in Marx. Liberals had always aimed at emasculating the state; Socialists such as Marx believed in strengthening the state in order to curb harmful differences. A strong state always meant a strong man. No one saw this more clearly than Nicolai I Lenin. Although he constantly talked of the "state withering away," from the beginning Lenin concentrated on getting more and more power in the hands of the strong man, which was himself. Stalin had only continued to apply the lesson he learned so well from Lenin.

The strength and the great evil of communism was contained in its one basic formula: The end justifies the means.