Kossuth examined his finger nails with studied nonchalance. "Why not admit it? The party will do literally anything to maintain itself in its position, major. Certainly, the death of a junior officer of the West-world means nothing to them." "But aren't you a Party member yourself?" "Of course. One must be, if one is to operate as freely as circumstance allows in this best of all possible worlds, this paradise of ours." Joe sank back on his pillow. He couldn't get used to the idea of this man, whom he had always thought of as the arch-stereotype Sov-world officer, speaking in this manner. Kossuth crossed his legs comfortably. "See, here, major, you are all but naive in your understanding of our society. Let me, ah, brief you, on the history of this part of the world, and the organization which governs it. Have you studied Marx and Engels?" "No," Joe said. "I've read a few short extracts, and a few criticisms, or criticisms of criticisms of short extracts. That sort of thing." * * * * * Kossuth nodded seriously. "That's all practically anybody does any more, even in the Sov-world where we give lip service to them. The point I was about to make is that the supposed founders of our society had nothing even remotely approaching this in mind when they did their research. It evidently never occurred to either that the first attempts to achieve the--" the Hungarian's voice went dry--"glorious revolution, would take place in such ultra-backward countries as Russia and China. The revolution of which they wrote presupposedly a highly industrialized, technical economy. Neither Russia nor, later China had this. The, ah, excesses that occurred in both countries, in the mid-Twentieth Century, were the result of efforts to rectify this. You follow me? The Party, in power as a result of the confusion following in one case the First World War, and in the second case, the Second World War, tried to lift the nations into the industrial world by the bootstraps." The colonel cleared his throat. "Let us say that some elements resisted the sacrifices the Party demanded--the peasants, for instance." Joe said, dryly himself, "If I am correctly informed on Sov-world history, you do not exaggerate." "Exactly. Let us admit it. Stalin, in particular, but others too, both before and following him, were ruthless in their determination to achieve industrialization and raise the Sov-world to the level of the most advanced countries." Joe said, "This isn't exactly news to me, colonel." "Of course not. Bear with me, I was but making background. To accomplish these things, the Party had to, and did, become a strong, ruthless, even merciless organization, with all power safely--from its viewpoint, of course--in its hands. And, in spite of all handicaps and setbacks, eventually succeeded in the task it had set itself. That is the achieving of an industrialized nation."