Whether or not a basic correction of communism will take place via esoteric elements, supposedly represented even in the Komintern according to reliable sources, will appear, if at all, only indirectly. (Zen and Hesychasm seem to be the leading contenders in this reform.) In any event, the high degree of discipline required for those making up the highest cadre of the Komintern (such as the conscious renunciation of the ego for the sake of an idea) is not to be underestimated with respect to its effects; it is on the same plane in a secularized form as the religious orders and their demand for absolute obedience and self-denial. It is a hypertrophied form of discipline to which we in the West have nothing equivalent to oppose, particularly as military obedience, partly degenerated to the form of "corpse loyalty," is of itself no real comparison to the true-to-line attitude of the communist (with respect to the cadre, not to the despots)." - Jean Gebser (1953)