Two general propositions may explain the durable attraction of communist dictators, such as Stalin, for many Western intellectuals. The first is the profound ignorance of the personalities, policies, and intentions of these dictators. The other is a remarkable capacity for projection and wishful thinking on the part of many intellectuals (of all human beings) for attributing qualities they highly value to individuals they were disposed to admire. Even when such circumstances are taken into account, the gulf between the reality (as summarized, for example, in the assessments of Kennan and Djilas) and the deluded positive views of Stalin (to be sampled below) is so enormous that its satisfactory explanation and understanding requires both considerable effort and imagination.

It is of course easier to account for the reverence and the susceptibility to his cult on the part of the Soviet population, intellectuals included. The Soviet public could not avoid daily exposure to the systematic and thorough bombardment by the deified images of Stalin disseminated by the institutions of propaganda and education. At the same time it could also be argued that the cult might have encountered greater resistance among Soviet citizens who had intimate, daily personal experience of the many discrepancies between the promises of the authorities, Stalin included, and the disillusioning realities of their life – economic as well as political.