Gramsci was a sharp observer who saw that Bolshevism did not work. Only through terror could the regime compel obedience. Gramsci concluded that Leninism had failed. The Russian people had not been converted to communism; they loathed it. Their land, faith, families, icons, and Mother Russia all meant far more to the Russian people than any international workers’ solidarity. The Soviets were deluding themselves, Gramsci concluded. The Russian people had not changed. They were obedient only because resistance meant a knock at the door at midnight and a bullet in the back of the neck in the
...more
