“We were raised as the fanatical adepts of a new creed, the only true religion of scientific socialism. The party became our church mili-tant, bequeathing to all mankind eternal salvation, eternal peace and the bliss of an earthly paradise. It victoriously surmounted all other churches, schisms and heresies. The works of Marx, Engels and Lenin were accepted as holy writ, and Stalin was the infallible high priest.

Factories, mines, blast furnaces, locomotives, tractors, work-benches, turbines were transformed into objects of a cult, the sacramental objects blessed from on high. "Technology solves everything!" Men genuflected to these objects in poetry, prose, painting, film, mu-sic…”