ABSTRACT
In the Soviet Union, Marxism-Leninism is used to justify a regime which is far from resembling socialism as envisaged by Marx himself or by the Marxists of the Second International. The real happiness of the people demands that Marxism-Leninism be suppressed as the illusory happiness of the people. Indeed, a society which claimed allegiance to Marxism-Leninism while preserving the liberal values and/or democratic procedures would come as a shock to the Soviet ideocracy, if not to the Soviet empire. Marxism-Leninism "Sinified" or "Vietnamified" is like a tool of power, a way of mobilizing—and molding into conformity—the minds of the population. Centralized authoritarian planning is inseparable from the Marxist-Leninist ideology as professed and imposed by the Kremlin leadership. Other opponents of ideology besides Solzhenitsyn, the most famous of them being Sakharov, have reached the point of condemning socialism itself. According to Sakharov, Solzhenitsyn faithfully describes—but misinterprets—certain phenomena typical of the Soviet regime.
