A key principle in this vision is that the Communist regimes, no matter how illiberal, had serious altruistic intentions in comparison with the irredeemably self-serving capitalist West. (Academics in the capitalist West greeted this brain wave with awed approval, failing to note that their society could hardly be self-interested if it allowed them to do so—unless, that is, freedom of expression is a sly trick played by capitalism to convince the gullible that they are at liberty.) When Sartre broke with the Communists, he retained respect for their putatively benevolent social intentions, and was ready to say something exculpatory even when what he was exculpating was the Gulag network—whose existence, after he finally ceased to deny it, he never condemned as a central product of a totalitarian system, but as an incidental blemish https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2007/03/the-problem-with-sartre.html Reposts not spotlights on known fascist cypherpunks ( Hi James Donald! )