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"Income inequality is a huge problem, absolutely," he added. "But the idea that the solution is more government, more regulation, more debt, and less risk is dangerously absurd."

The Soviet Union had been dissolved for seven years by the time the youngest voters in this year's U.S. presidential election were born. Many Americans — particularly younger ones — no longer associate the word "socialism" with the barren grocery aisles, rampant corruption and concrete walls separating East from West. For them, "Democratic socialism" is the 2016 version of "hope and change."

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"A word that their elders saw as a slur," The Post's David Weigel and David A. Fahrenthold wrote last year, has "become a blank, open for Sanders to define."

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Sanders, in his effort to define it, has attempted to associate the term with a deeply held American virtue: fairness.

“When I use the word socialist – and I know some people aren’t comfortable about it — I’m saying that it is imperative,” Sanders said in November, according to Time, that we “create a government that works for all and not just the few.”

“I don’t believe government should own the means of production, but I do believe that the middle class and the working families who produce the wealth of America deserve a fair deal,” he added.

The Sanders campaign has not responded to multiple requests from The Post seeking comment about Kasparov's harsh critique.

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No matter how the word is used, Kasparov argued in a subsequent Daily Beast editorial, the chess genius wants no part of it.

"Hey, Bernie, Don’t Lecture Me About Socialism. I Lived Through It," the editorial is headlined.

Kasparov credits capitalism for enhancing the economic prospects of billions around the world during the 2oth century and socialism for impoverishing billions more.

"Of course," he wrote, "Senator Sanders does not want to turn America into a totalitarian state like the one I grew up in. But it’s a valuable example of the inevitable failure of a state-run economy and distribution system. (Check in on Venezuela for a more recent example.) Once you give power to the government it is nearly impossible to get it back, and it will be used in ways you cannot expect."

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As Kasparov freely admits, he is a rare beneficiary of the economic system he despises. The Soviet government, as Kasparov told Bill Kristol during a lengthy interview last month, channeled massive state resources into cultivating promising young talents like him.

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Had he not been blessed with an extraordinary chess mind, or had he been born in the United States, his talent may have gone unnoticed.

"...There were very few options available for talented kids – business was not an option, politics was not an option, the law was not an option, and every parent tried to look for some opportunities for their kids, and chess was one of them," Kasparov, who grew up in Baku, Azerbaijan, and was training in a prestigious chess academy by age 10, said in his interview with Kristol.

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"Music, ballet, some kind of science, sports in general, so that’s why Soviet authorities could, you know, could channel these huge mass of potential talented kids into these chess network and finding [Anatoly] Karpov, Kasparov, and other great players, you know, was not that difficult because it was simply about big numbers," he said.

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Kasparov's mistrust of the state began to deepen when he was a teenager and was able to travel abroad for matches. Outside the confines of his home country, he said, he was exposed to foreign people, ideas and media. Most importantly, he said, he was able to buy books that weren't available back home.

But Kasparov, like die-hard communist members of his family, still clung to the notion that the nation's economic challenges were the result of poorly implemented policies, not a larger indictment of the system itself. Despite the overwhelming evidence before him, Kasparov said it took time for him to realize that for many, the game was fixed.

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"Only mid-'80s I could realize it was nothing to do with good Lenin or bad Stalin and a bad implementation — it’s gulag, concentration camps, the purges, famine, and it’s suppression of all sorts of freedom," he said. "It was inevitable. It’s, you know, no matter how you play these moves, it will end up with the same result. But it took some time."

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Almost 30 years later, Kasparov is an advocate of free-market capitalism — one who argues that competitive failure is a crucial component of creativity and innovation.

"A centrally planned economy cannot imitate this engine of creative destruction because you cannot plan for failure," he wrote in the Daily Beast. "You cannot predestine which two college dropouts in a garage will produce the next Apple."