And while Lenin read a book on Marx
The quartet practiced in the park
And we sang dirges in the dark
The day the music died

— American Pie by Don McLean

(1) Spy Kim Philby died disillusioned with communism (The Guardian)

His habit was fuelled by his sorrow over what he saw around him, she added. “Kim believed in a just society and devoted his whole life to communism. And here he was struck by disappointment, brought to tears. He said, ‘Why do old people live so badly here? After all, they won the war.'”

(2) Acceptance Address by Mr. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (Templeton Prize)

(3) The Pope and the President (The Catholic Thing)

(4) Christmas by John Betjeman

No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare –
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.