Russia (Martin Sixsmith), continued

Several observations on the Russian revolution:
 - If you can incite a man to kill another due to perceived agreements, then someone else can too. You then know what kind of man you are dealing with.
 - When you are dealing with someone who deliberately attempts to suppress his emotions and cultivate more sociopathic tendencies than he was inherently born with, you probably shouldn't run the other way. That tends to leave your back as a nice target for rifle fire.
 - Terror only works to the point where everyone knows that they're going to be mercilessly tortured for no better reason than that they need to be to keep the rest of the masses terrified. At that point, they have nothing left to lose, and will rise.
 - The enemy of those with plans are those people who come to believe whole-heartedly in those plans. When the people who have the plans change something, in response to crises or needs, the people who whole-heartedly believe in those original plans won't switch. You have to get people-worship for that. (Taken from the discussion of the New Economic Policy (NEP), and it seems to apply reasonably well to the US Tea Party origins vs current construction).


 I would like to point out an observation of the author. He is discussing the similarities between the NEP and Gorbachev's perestroika reforms. The passage in the footnote on page 245 reads, "I believe that Gorbachev, like Lenin, saw economic liberalization as a means to preserve and strengthen socialism, but - unlike Lenin - he failed to impose the political tightening that would stop change spiraling out of control and ultimately destroying the system is was designed to save." I don't have enough background on the perestroika reforms to see if this is an accurate comparison, and I'm sure from the bias of the author that the way it is presented here will portray it as an accurate comparison, but the entirety of the footnote give an interesting idea on how political parties can maintain power. More interesting is trying to figure out at what point the reforms have progressed so far that the reforms themselves start getting pushback. I'm a product of a capitalist society and I have trouble seeing that such reforms on this society would go too far, but then I look at the push for more bank regulation and realize that that is exactly what we're seeing. I wonder where the balance point is and how the initial outlook of the reforming society affects the balance point.

"...the Russian people's worst misfortune was Lenin's birth; their next worst, his death.' -Winston Churchill. How do different generations of Russians view/react to this statement?


The final and only true conclusion I can arrive at from reading these passages: 
I sincerely pray to whatever may be listening that I never forget that people are, in fact, people.