It is true that both—those in the communist countries and those throughout the Western world after the demise of communism—were and still are quite frequently an object of jokes, sometimes quite deadly, but at the same time their presence evoked, and the latter case are still evoking, feelings of fear or at least a sense of the clear message that opposing those people is not safe. Finally, both sides had spectacular victories among the intellectual and artistic elites; this is particularly puzzling because one would think that the people endowed with artistic and intellectual talents would be
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