Reply #6: My only exposure was Soviet.

[Igel]

The attitude in the '20s and '30s (and later) was that all of man's ills were societal ills: That if you fixed society, you'd automatically fix man. By having a corrupt society, you made for corrupt citizens. It was fairly deterministic, even though it left unanswered the question as to how the leaders could be uncorrupted in order to create, by fiat, a good and just society.