ABSTRACT
Communists and progressives believed that the urgency of their cause was so great that it excused lesser lapses, such as the crimes of Stalin. Attempts to prove that Stalinists were justified in concealing or misrepresenting their politics are only a small part of this rhetorical campaign. Stalinists, and to a degree progressives also, maintained that the end justified the means, and they constantly employed the double standard to advance it. Liberal and left-wing anti-Stalinists, in contrast, were more scrupulous. Soviet intervention was nothing to worry about, as Afghanistan had been a Soviet client state since 1978. Soviet policy was opportunistic rather than calculated, and therefore practically harmless. The anti-Stalinists blamed leftists and progressives for losing China, while they in turn held anti-Stalinists responsible for McCarthyism and Vietnam. Both sides were led astray by faith in the power of ideas, as also by the large role played by intellectuals in revolutions abroad.
