book review: Inside the Stalin Archives by Jonathan Brent


	book review: Inside the Stalin Archives by Jonathan Brent

Deepti

3-25-2009 5:43 AM

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tags:

book, death, dictatorship, history, law, review, russia, stalin

Deepti says:

interesting....

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/363b89be-2e62-405f-a5b8-a5d14a0a756b/E5A7CB01-ADF2-4D8B-8CCD-887D1BBA60C9/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/The-lingering-stench--airing-Stalin-s-archives-4028" href="http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/The-lingering-stench--airing-Stalin-s-archives-4028" style="font-size: 11px;">www.newcriterion.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/The-lingering-stench--airing-Stalin-s-archives-4028">the most important lesson to come from the Stalin archives is that any ideology 
that does not admit the existence of human nature winds up destroying not only 
countless lives but also the human soul</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/The-lingering-stench--airing-Stalin-s-archives-4028">Under Putin, Russia has turned away from a fleeting opportunity to embrace 
legality. A sort of mafia rules without breaking the law—because there is no 
real law. And yet, by comparison with the Soviet period, Russia is free and 
humane. To be sure, any journalist or businessman who displeases the regime is 
likely to be imprisoned, maimed, or killed. But millions are not arrested at 
random</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/The-lingering-stench--airing-Stalin-s-archives-4028">Solzhenitsyn once asked why the bloodthirsty Macbeth killed only a few people 
while Lenin and Stalin murdered millions. He answered: Macbeth had no ideology. 
So far as we can tell, neither does Putin. Today no one tries to remake human 
nature. For the time being, and however precariously, the human spirit survives</blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/E5A7CB01-ADF2-4D8B-8CCD-887D1BBA60C9/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content9.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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