…. everything I have said today is not a bluff – it is not a bluff, believe me – and … those who live in the past … unable to look into the future … [should] stop rocking the boat we are all in which is called the Earth.”
Vladimir Putin, 1 March 2018
Nearly two years ago The Washington Post published a piece on “Putin’s dangerous campaign to rehabilitate Stalin.” It pointed out that Stalin and Putin both murdered political opponents. Of course, Putin’s political killings have not been as numerous as Stalin’s; but why would Putin rehabilitate a communist mass murderer like Stalin? Perhaps because Stalin was Russia’s “great” leader during World War II. Perhaps Putin aspires to be such a leader himself. Essayist Simona Pipko, who met Stalin many years ago, once observed that Putin imitates Stalin’s mannerisms. And now, having studied Putin’s State of the Nation Address (which was delivered three years ago last month), it seems that Putin has Stalin’s flare for instilling fear (and perhaps his taste for killing on a grander scale; please see “How Many People Did Joseph Stalin Kill?”)
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