East bloc intellectuals

Antonín Liehm

pp. 165-169

in: Vladimir Tismaneanu, Judith Shapiro (eds), Debates on the future of communism, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1991

Abstract

What exactly is the situation and role of intellectuals and culture in socialist countries? Are they court jesters, peddlers of ideology, high priests and creators of myths, builders of monuments, official painters and portraitists? Or are they the eternal martyrs of totalitarianism, victims of its institutionalized censorships, keepers of the flame of dissent, Cassandras to whom nobody listens, witnesses who eventually testify before the world to all crimes and arbitrariness?