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" President Trump is, some ways, the personification of a new Bolshevism of the Right, where the ends justify the means and acceptable tactics include lies and smears and the exploitation of what Lenin called 'useful idiots.' "

Simon Sebag Montefiore
New
Right
President
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" Russia's first major intervention began in 1768, when Catherine the Great went to war with the Ottomans, and Count Alexei Orlov, the brother of her lover Grigory, sailed the Baltic fleet through the Strait of Gibraltar to rally rebellions in the Mediterranean. "
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" She grounded me. I have become very disciplined now. I would never have written the books without her. Definitely the cleverest thing I ever did was to marry Santa. Maybe it's the only clever thing I did. "
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" Yeltsin was admirable but flawed, noble but tainted, but in his own negligent grandeur, he undermined his own real achievements - and accelerated their ruin. "
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" Under Stalin, artists weren't dissidents; all they hoped was to survive and write. "
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" I don't like sports. I'm not interested in sports. I hate sports. "
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" Most history books are about power. "
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" I'm the sort of person who, if I arrive in a city under siege, in the middle of nowhere, I'll always find my way to the leader of the rebels. I just don't know how. "
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" I am a passionate nonfinisher. Life is too short, and there are too many great books to read, so if I lose interest or respect, I switch. But when, of course, when you really fall in love with a book, all the others are ignored. "
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" I'm not disciplined at all. I barely function. But I get a lot done. I take days off all the time, but when I work, I work very fast and very efficiently. But I'm always having days when I'm feeling a little anxious, and I take a day off. I work in a funny way. "
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" When I was young, I always wanted to go to Russia. "
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" The Soviet Union was designed for Muscovite rule, not for division into independent republics. Yet the latter is exactly what happened in 1991 - and the Kremlin has never accepted it. "
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" Stalin, of course, never went on trial, but his legacy did. In 1956, three years after his death, he was denounced by Nikita Khrushchev. And his crimes were even more explicitly exposed by Mikhail Gorbachev during the late '80s. Yet to many, Stalin remains more legitimate as a Russian leader than anyone since. "
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" Russia is so feudal in its system of patronage and reward that it is virtually impossible for a leader to hand over power without controlling his successor or at least receiving an exemption from prosecution - something Mr. Putin granted his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, in 1999. "
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" Writing fiction is very different to writing non-fiction. I love writing novels, but on history books, like my biographies of Stalin or Catherine the Great or Jerusalem, I spend endless hours doing vast amounts of research. But it ends up being based on the same principle as all writing about people: and that is curiosity! "
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" I am ashamed to say that both my children knew Stalin before they knew Thomas the Tank Engine. "
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" Unlike monarchs, who pass power to their heirs at the moment of death to ensure the survival of the regime, tyrants must simply survive as long as possible. "
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" In the new Georgia, Stalin is no longer Georgian. He's a Russian emperor. "
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" Writing about Jerusalem can be such a minefield. "
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" The disorder, uncertainty, and strife of a revolution make citizens yearn for stable authority, or they turn to radicalism. "
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" In 1942, the Germans were running out of fuel. They were advancing so fast across the grasslands, the hot grasslands of south Russia, and the Russians were running out of tanks. And so both of them turned to cavalry, and there were great cavalry battles on the grasslands. "
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" The political lives of tyrants play out human affairs with a special intensity: the death of a democratic leader long after his retirement is a private matter, but the death of a tyrant is always a political act that reflects the character of his power. "
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" There are few words in Russian for the Western concept of 'law,' but there are legions of words for connections, helping people from one's neck of the woods. "
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" Around us, we do see attempts to delegitimize Israel, a sort of secret, hidden anti-Semitism growing in many countries, often on the right but also on the left. "
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