The task of a Communist educator is […] principally that of Stalin’s engineer – of so adjusting the individual that he should only ask those questions the answers to which are readily accessible, that he shall grow up in such a way that he would naturally fit into his society with minimum friction […]
Curiosity for its own sake, the spirit of independent individual enquiry, the desire to create or contemplate beautiful things for their own sake, to find out truth for its own sake, to pursue ends because they are what they are and satisfy some deep desire of our nature, are […] damned because they may increase the differences between men, because they may not conduce to harmonious development of a monolithic society.
From Isaiah Berlin, The Soviet Mind – Russian Culture Under Communism
