Oct 04, 2024
Oct 04, 2024
Chances are less that we find people like Mikhail Gorbachev and Deng Xiaoping in anyone’s list of great leaders who contributed to the progress of mankind. Their greatness lies in their signal contributions to the downfall of unrealistic and unworkable isms. Otherwise mankind would have spent another century experimenting with systems of governance that can never be stable and satisfying.
These visionary leaders could achieve the noble task as insiders and they could convince their own followers the impracticality of hoping for paradises to evolve from unrealistic systems. Nobel prize for peace would have been the apt one for such people. While Gorbachev could successfully dismantle Soviet Union and thereby the cold war, Deng Xiaoping took his billion strong crowd away from a path of useless revolution. Millions of lives have been saved from attaining unwanted and unproductive martyrdom.
The phenomenon of late realization is very common among Communists everywhere in the world. Almost 90% of the Communists who are not active in politics invariably turn against the ism when they pass the age of 50. Only those who are in active in politics, especially those who are enjoying the spoils of power as members of leftist political parties, prefer to live with it. They have something to lose and they learn the technique of adjusting with their conscience till they have completed their tenures of enjoyment.
13-Jan-2008
More by : J. Ajithkumar