Of all these dreamers and idealists, it was communists like my own grandparents who proved to have the biggest influence on the events of the last century. In every single country in which their ideas were tried, they failed to deliver on their enticing promises. North Korea and the Soviet Union, Maoist China and the East Germany of Erich Honecker delivered despotism in lieu of emancipation, and deprivation in the place of affluence.
