Submitted by Claude Bogardus, Feb 9, 2007 11:02

In any decent polity the State is the Servant of Society. In the stultifying dictatorships of Central and Eastern Europe the State was an aspiring Master, according to Mussolini's famous formulation. There remains another relationship demanding understanding. In the USSR, the totalitarian center ruling the Empire, the State was the frequently purged Servant of the Inner Party Clique, from whom all power and knowledge emanated.

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