" Ideology - that is what gives evil doing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others eyes, so that he won't hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honors. That was how the Agents of the Inquisition fortified their wheels by invoking Christianity; the conquerors of foreign lands, by extolling the Grandeur of their Motherland; the colonizers, by civilization; the Nazis, by race; and the Jacobins (early and late), by equality, brotherhood, and the happiness of future generations.
Thanks to ideology, the twentieth century was fated to experience evildoing on a scale calculated in the millions. This cannot be denied, nor passed over, nor suppressed. How, then, do we dare insist that evildoers do not exist? And who was it that destroy these millions? Without evil doers there would have been Archipelago."
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The Gulag Archipelago. VOL 1.
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