This book continues to explore several of my long-standing and converging interests. They include totalitarianism, communist systems, intellectuals and politics, the relationship between the personal and political, between political ideals and practices, the spiritual problems of modernity, and the apparently limitless capacity of idealistic human beings, notably intellectuals, to engage in wishful thinking and substantial political misjudgments. I should hasten to add that the generalizations and propositions that follow in this book apply only to an undetermined but very visible and vocal portion of Western intellectuals. In the absence of opinion and other surveys addressed to “intellectuals” these proportions cannot be determined and quantified. Many intellectuals had and have political attitudes and sympathies quite different from those examined in this book (see also Chapter 8, pp. 308–309).

In addition to the interests sketched above, much of my work over my entire professional life involved the broader issues of illusions and reality, theory and practice, as well as deception and self-deception. These interests found expression not only in my writings about the political illusions of Western intellectuals but also in other realms of illusions: political propaganda, commercial advertising, secular religions, the “cult of personality” (deification of political leaders), and most recently in the contemporary American pursuit of romantic love – an apolitical and far less destructive pursuit of illusions.

The major earlier expression of my interests noted above may be found in Political Pilgrims, first published in 1981. It was written during the 1970s and as such was influenced by my experiences of that period, and its dominant social-political movements, observed in academic settings (Harvard and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst). Some readers may consider this book a follow-up of Pilgrims and in certain respects they would be correct, given the continuity of my preoccupations. But there are also substantial differences between these two books and their subject matter.

Political Pilgrims examined the appeals and attractions various communist systems had for many Western intellectuals. It included only brief discussions of the appeals of the leaders and founders of these systems. By contrast, the present volume focuses on attitudes toward and perceptions of the leaders of these systems that in many instances could be characterized as hero worship.