Believe it or not, some Western analysts in the 1930s insisted that Stalin was a ‘moderate,’ controlled by extremists like the secret police chief Nikolai Yezhov.
Nicholas I has been called ‘Genghis Khan with a telegraph.’ Stalin was ‘Genghis Khan with a telephone.’ But Mr. Putin is not Genghis Khan with a BlackBerry.
In the new Georgia, Stalin is no longer Georgian. He’s a Russian emperor.
When we were in school, we were told that Stalin was a madman who got control of Europe, which teaches you nothing.
The Soviet Union was designed for Muscovite rule, not for division into independent republics. Yet the latter is exactly what happened in 1991 – and the Kremlin has never accepted it.
I am a passionate nonfinisher. Life is too short, and there are too many great books to read, so if I lose interest or respect, I switch. But when, of course, when you really fall in love with a book, all the others are ignored.
Colonel Qaddafi’s tyranny was absolutist, monarchical, and personal. The problem with such dictatorships is that as long as the tyrant lives, he reigns and terrorizes.
A reforming liberal leader in Russia is the Holy Grail of Kremlinology, but the search for one is as misguided and hopeless as that for the relic of the Last Supper.
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