In the 1980s, the Polish economist Bronislaw Kaminski used to make an observation that confused liberal, leftist and even some conservative intellectuals in the West. Communism, he argued, was not a good idea implemented badly, but a terrible idea implemented surprisingly well. - Read full article

Mikhail Gorbachev called Afghanistan “our bleeding wound”. Why hasn’t Nato learned from the Soviet Union. In May 1985, two months after Mikhail Gorbachev became general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, he sent one of his cleverest generals to Kabul on an urgent, secret mission. The name of General Zaitsev is unlikely to be well known to today's Nato commanders, but perhaps it should be. Back then he was the Red Army's most senior military planner and logi