Horkheimer framed Soviet events as a desperate extension of a struggle against social injustice.

Evidence

Anyone who can see the pointless injustice of the imperialist world, which can in no way be explained by any mere technical inability to improve conditions, must see events in Russia as a continuation of the agonizing attempt to overcome horrifying social injustices. At the very least, he will ask, with a pounding heart, whether this attempt is still continuing. If appearances were to suggest the contrary, he would still cling on to the pure hope, just as someone with cancer clings to the dubious news that a cure may have been found. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 245

Categorization

• XREF: The cancer analogy — hope clinging to dubious news — anticipates the Frankfurt School’s vexed relation to actually-existing socialism and resonates with later critical-theory debates on whether to abandon revolutionary hope. — connects to: Horkheimer saw Soviet events as clinging hope, not demonstrated success