"... a well- known tragic figure from the Cold Car era : those western leftists who heroically defied anti-communist hysteria in their own countries with utmost sincerity. They were even reday to go to prison for their Communist convictions and their defense of the Soviet Union. Is it not the very illusory nature of their belief that makes their subjective stance so tragically sublime ? The miserable reality of the Stalinist Soviet Union renders the fragile beauty of their inner-conviction all the more majestic. This leads us to a radical and unexpected conclusion : It is not enough to say that we are delaing here with a tragically misplaced ethical conviction, with a blind trust that avoid confronting the miserable, terrifying reality of its ethical point of reference. What if, on the contrary, such a blindness, such a violent gesture of refusing-to-see, such a disavowal-of-reality, such a fetishistic attitude of "I know very well that things are horrible in the USSR but I nonetheless believe in Soviet Socialism" is the innermost constituent part of every ethical stance ?"
in Slavoj Zizek, In Defense of Lost causes, Verso, 2009.
