Word: stalins
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Grand gestures and heroic sacrifices come naturally to the Poles, along with an alarming capacity for martyrdom. The 19th century playwright Stanislaw Wyspianski called long-suffering Poland "the Christ of nations" because of its capacity for anguish. Joseph Stalin is said to have remarked that bringing Communism to Poland was "like trying to saddle a cow." He did it anyway, but a nation of rebellious, romantic anti-Russian Catholics proved to be troublesome from the beginning. Most Poles never
Autocracy, bureaucracy, terror Autocracy, bureaucracy, terror and militarism all reached their culminations under Joseph Stalin. He converted the party into a reflection of his personal will, made the secret police a state within the state, and during World War II became the first political leader to award himself the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union. Carrying the logic of Marxist-Leninist vigilance and militancy to grotesque extremes, Stalin presided over the extermination of at least 20 million "class enemies," "enemies of the state," "enemies of the people" and "traitors...
Liberal Marxists like Roy Medvedev, a Soviet historian who is frequently harassed by the authorities, indignantly reject the suggestion that Marxism was in any sense to blame for the terrors of Stalinism. But it is hard to deny that Marxism-particularly as interpreted by Lenin-provided many of the concepts, attitudes and institutions that made Stalinism possible. Ex-Communists such as Arthur Koestler, author of the famous anti-Stalinist novel Darkness at Noon, have argued persuasively that Communism is corrupt and corrupting because of the brutal way that power is often attained and maintained. As the absolute embodiment of both...
...outlasted most of the rulers who were his contemporaries and governed the world's largest country longer than anyone but Stalin. Yet the private life of Leonid Brezhnev, like that of most Soviet higher-ups, is among the most carefully guarded of state secrets. There are no handy biographical sources in the Soviet Union. When Brezhnev came to power in 1964, Westerners were unable at first to determine even the basic facts. Was his wife named Lyudmila or Victoria? (It is the latter.) Did he have two children or three? (Western sources say three, though Soviet references list only...
...goals. He wants to examine the many major issues facing the church, and how it must react, but he seems reluctant to provide the sort of tough devil's advocacy that such an investigation demands. The result is a book of pulled punches. The book's title comes from Stalin's famous reply, when told of the pope's likely opposition to a Soviet move: "How many divisions has the pope?" With a bit of clever wordplay, Nichols seems intent on making it mean not only the pope's military divisions, but his moral and spiritual divisions as well. Ironically...