What if the Soviet intervention was a blessing in disguise? It saved the myth that if the Soviets were not to intervene, there would have been some flowering authentic democratic socialism and so on. I'm a little bit more of a pessimist there. I think that the Soviets - it's a very sad lesson - by their intervention, saved the myth.

Summary

This quote suggests that the Soviet intervention had an unintended positive consequence. It argues that the intervention actually prevented the potential failure of implementing authentic democratic socialism, which would have shattered the myth that it could succeed. The speaker takes a pessimistic view, seeing the Soviet intervention as a sad lesson that ultimately upheld the illusion of a successful democratic socialism by intervening and preventing any potential shortcomings from being exposed.

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