The ideas of socialism, founded on the notion that human reason is all-powerful, are to a considerable extent a heritage of the European age of Enlightenment. In that sense, socialism is the product of one of the orientations of European consciousness. As long as the ideas of socialism exist only in academic, armchair form, they appear quite normal, and may fairly be discussed equally with other ideas. As soon as they are applied in practice (whether in China, East Germany, Cuba or Ethiopia), a peculiar, strange and terrifying phenomenon occurs. In the essence of socialist ideas there is something which inevitably gives rise to a civilization whose principles are inimical to Western humanist culture and which at the same time differs in its essence from the darkest Eastern despotism.