Simon Sebag Montefiore · 848 pages
Rating: (6K votes)
“Perhaps 20 million had been killed; 28 million deported, of whom 18 million had slaved in the Gulags. Yet, after so much slaughter, they were still believers.”
― Simon Sebag Montefiore, quote from Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar
“Old Molotov was asked if he dreamed about Stalin: “Not often but sometimes. The circumstances are very unusual. I’m in some sort of destroyed city and I can’t find a way out. Afterwards, I meet HIM...”1”
― Simon Sebag Montefiore, quote from Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar
“That doesn’t matter. Gorky’s a vain man. We must bind him with cables to the Party,” replied Stalin.3 It worked: during the kulak liquidation, Gorky unleashed his hatred of the backward peasants in Pravda: “If the enemy does not surrender, he must be exterminated.” He toured concentration camps and admired their re-educational value. He supported slave labour projects such as the Belomor Canal which he visited with Yagoda, whom he congratulated: “You rough fellows do not realize what great work you’re doing!”4 Yagoda,”
― Simon Sebag Montefiore, quote from Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar
“twenties, served as his judge in 1937 and even denounced a”
― Simon Sebag Montefiore, quote from Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar
“Beneath the eerie calm of these unfathomable waters were deadly whirlpools of ambition, anger and unhappiness.”
― Simon Sebag Montefiore, quote from Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar
“Perhaps 20 million had been killed; 28 million deported, of whom 18 million had slaved in the Gulags. Yet, after so much slaughter, they were still believers. At”
― Simon Sebag Montefiore, quote from Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar
“The Bolsheviks were atheists but they were hardly secular politicians in the conventional sense: they stooped to kill from the smugness of the highest moral eminence. Bolshevism may not have been a religion, but it was close enough. Stalin told Beria the Bolsheviks were “a sort of military-religious order.” When Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Cheka, died, Stalin called him “a devout knight of the proletariat.” Stalin’s “order of sword-bearers” resembled the Knights Templars, or even the theocracy of the Iranian Ayatollahs, more than any traditional secular movement. They would die and kill for their faith in the inevitable progress towards human betterment, making sacrifices of their own families, with a fervour seen only in the religious slaughters and martyrdoms of the Middle Ages—and the Middle East. They”
― Simon Sebag Montefiore, quote from Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar
“The Party justified its “dictatorship” through purity of faith. Their Scriptures were the teachings of Marxism-Leninism, regarded as a “scientific” truth. Since ideology was so important, every leader had to be—or seem to be—an expert on Marxism-Leninism, so that these ruffians spent their weary nights studying, to improve their esoteric credentials, dreary articles on dialectical materialism. It was so important that Molotov and Polina even discussed Marxism in their love letters: “Polichka my darling . . . reading Marxist classics is very necessary . . . You must read some more of Lenin’s works coming out soon and then a number of Stalin’s . . . I so want to see you.”
― Simon Sebag Montefiore, quote from Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar
“Party-mindedness” was “an almost mystical concept,” explained Kopelev. “The indispensable prerequisites were iron discipline and faithful observance of all the rituals of Party life.” As one veteran Communist put it, a Bolshevik was not someone who believed merely in Marxism but “someone who had absolute faith in the Party no matter what . . . A person with the ability to adapt his morality and conscience in such a way that he can unreservedly accept the dogma that the Party is never wrong—even though it’s wrong all the time.” Stalin did not exaggerate when he boasted: “We Bolsheviks are people of a special cut.”2 Nadya”
― Simon Sebag Montefiore, quote from Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar
“However the story is told and elaborated, the raw shame of it will be with him now til his last breath.”
― David Malouf, quote from Ransom
“Ico ran back to the windmill, growing increasily nervous with each moment Yorda was out of his sight. He didn't want to think what would happen if the shadow-creatures attacked while they were apart.”
― Miyuki Miyabe, quote from Ico: Castle in the Mist
“The lady shuffled around, bending over to inspect the flowers and holding up one of the tags. “Oh nuts. Are these already sold?” she asked. I shook my head. “No.”
“Goody,” she smiled, looking at a tag that said Adulescenita Deferbui, on the outside and The Fires of Youth have Cooled – But you’re still looking foxy!”
― Jennifer Gooch Hummer, quote from Girl Unmoored
“O Ocean, you remind me somewhat of the bluish marks one sees on the battered backs of cabin boys.”
― Comte de Lautréamont, quote from Maldoror = Les Chants de Maldoror, together with a translation of Lautréamont's Poésies
“1 :
...
بإرادة الروح
تأتي أشكال لا تعد و لا تحصى ..
و بسبب هذه الإرادة
لا أستطيع حتى أن أتكلم ..
بإرادة الروح
((أي روح القدس))
تأتي جميع الأرواح
اندمج في هذه الروح
و كن عظيما ..
يإرادة الروح
يكون الخير و الشر
و بها يكتب
الألم و السلام
للجميع .
للبعض ، تحضر
الهدايا الوفيرة
للبعض ، تودي
إلى تيه لا نهاية له
كل شئ موجود ضمن تلك الإرادة
.. لا شئ كاذب من ورائها
آه يا ناناك :
إذا فهمت
الإرادة الإلهية
لن تجد
(نفسك)
شئ لتقوله”
― Guru Nanak, quote from Sri Guru Granth Sahib
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