Political Pilgrims: Western Intellectuals in Search of the Good Society.

"In this major study, Paul Hollander seeks to understand why so many distinguished Western intellectuals of the 20th century admired the various communist systems, often in their most repressive historical phases."

I have finally read a book that explains why so many of my colleagues praise people such as Castro, Chávez, Lula, Morales and blindly support communist/socialist repressive systems.  I also recommend The End of Commitment: Intellectuals, Revolutionaries, and Political Morality in the Twentieth Century, by the same author. Neda Bezerra.