Communist ideology attacks both root and branch and poisons the soil. Many countries in Eastern Europe are still struggling, despite the stabilizing influence and massive financial support provided by the European Union for decades. For some nations it was psychologically easier to uproot Communism because it was seen as a by-product of the hated Soviet occupation and they were eager to throw it all out. Of course this is hardly an endorsement of any type of dictatorship. I believe Churchill’s famous phrase: “democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried.” But it partly explains why the former republics of the USSR have struggled so badly and why the regimes of Cuba and North Korea have proven so durable. It is the difference between people resenting that they are not free and people believing they do not deserve freedom.
— Winter is Coming (Garry Kasparov), Loc. 841–7