Why Putin is beholden to Stalin's legacy - New Statesman
newstatesman.com · 3,124 words · saved by 1 readers
The Russian president has embraced the Soviet cult of fear and control. His invasion of Ukraine is a colossal gamble to secure his place in history.
When guests used to visit Vladimir Putin in his office in the Kremlin’s Senate Palace, he’d point at the bookshelves and ask them to choose a book from Joseph Stalin’s library. Half of Stalin’s books – usually marked up by the Soviet leader himself with red or green crayons – remain in Putin’s office. As one of his ministers told me, Putin would ask the visitor to open the book and they would look together at whatever marginalia Stalin had written: sometimes it was a grim laugh: “xa-xa-xa!”; sometimes a snort of disdain: “green steam!”; at others it was just a word: “teacher” was written on
saved by
related reading
- The Purges in Putin’s Shrinking Inner Circle | The New Yorkernewyorker.com
- Stalin and his circle (Chapter 9) - The Cambridge History of Russiacambridge.org
- The War in Ukraine Is a Colonial War | The New Yorkernewyorker.com
- How to Stage a Coup - by Santi Ruiz - Statecraftstatecraft.pub
- Joseph Stalin's cult of personality - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
- How Russia Took My Home Twice Under the Pretext of Liberation | by Alice Korzh | The Ukrainian View | Mediummedium.com
- Great Purge - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
- Timothy Snyder: Ukraine Holds the Futureforeignaffairs.com
- What Happens Next in Ukraine Could Change Europe Forevertime.com
- How Putin's War Changed My Moscow - DER SPIEGELspiegel.de
- The mistake of conflating intelligence and powerdwarkesh.com
- Putin’s Fear of Retreat: How the Cuban Missile Crisis Haunts the Kremlinforeignaffairs.com