Greg, I certainly do not want to whitewash anybody; my intuitive tendency is rather to blacksmear.

In SLC's text, I object against his romanticising the era before JG, and blaming the change of mentality entirely on a single person. This is not how history can possibly work, not even in times of violent changes such as the October Revolution, and not even with extremely powerful and unscrupulous persons such as Stalin.

People who only want to know who were the good resp. bad guys or gals are not likely to learn from history.