Requiem for Utopia: Socialist Reflections on Czechoslovakia

Two days before the Soviet army entered Czechoslovakia, I received a letter from a student friend in Prague. The writer is an intelligent young man who received his entire formal education under the Communist regime. He had participated vigorously in the Czechoslovak reform in the spring of 1968, and had spent his vacation the following summer visiting first Nanterre, then Berlin. He speaks German and French fluently, reads English, and has made extensive contacts with his Western colleagues. His reflections on socialism East and West are worth quoting:

Western socialism, especially in its radical form, took me completely by surprise. It seemed so completely unreal, something from a different planet or a different era. You have co...