"Mack Reynolds - After Utopia" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reynolds Mack)

As a matter of fact, the most shrill of the anti-Commie
harridans are usually those of least political repute. For
every Denmark or Holland, we’ve got a South Korea or
Turkey. The big western powers seem to have recruited
their allies not for their adherence to the principles we
preach but for their opposition to the principles we
oppose.”
Pierre Meunier was grinning happily. “My point,
exactly,” he said.
Tracy Cogswell turned on him and snapped, “As for the
Commies, where did you get the idea that because one
side might be wrong, the other must be right?”
Meunier said something like, “Ung?”
Cogswell growled, “I sometimes think that if there
wasn’t any such thing as the Communist party that it’d
be to the interest of the western powers to create one. It
makes the biggest bogy of all time. In the name of
fighting the Commies you can pull just about anything in
the way of keeping your people from examining your own
institutions. In Guatemala, if the fruit pickers decide
they need a union to get better pay than six bucks a
week, the cry goes up they’re commies ! and the leaders
are thrown into the jug. In South Africa the natives
decide that some of the freedom they’ve been hearing
about might be a good idea and start making some noises
to that effect. Commies! the call goes up and they’re
slapped down flat. It applies to every country outside the
Soviet ones. Any man in his right mind can see that what
they’ve got in the Soviet Union is no answer, so even men
of good will allow almost anything to be pulled just as
long as its done in the name of fighting communism.”
Tracy Cogswell took an angry pull at his drink,
finishing it. “I think that the worst thing that ever
happened to social progress was that damned premature
Bolshevik revolution.”
Paul Lund was laughing at him. “What side are you on,
anyway?”
Cogswell slid off his stool and tossed two hundred
francs to the counter. He grunted his disgust. “That was
the point I was trying to make. It’s about time the people
in this world find out both sides are wrong and start
looking for something else. Good night, gentlemen.”
Jim said vacantly, “So long.” He hadn’t followed
Cogswell’s argument very well, but he could see by
Meunier’s unhappy expression that the party line hadn’t
been extolled.
Back in his apartment, he grunted sourly to himself.
What did he think he was accomplishing? None of the
three men he’d sounded off to were potential material for
the movement. And there was a remote possibility that,