BLUF:
[The Atlantic] In the contemporary West, we often assume that perpetrators of mass violence must be insane or irrational, but as Kotkin tells the story, Stalin was neither. And in its way, the idea of Stalin as a rational and extremely intelligent man, bolstered by an ideology sufficiently powerful to justify the deaths of many millions of people, is even more terrifying. It means we might want to take more seriously the pronouncements of the Russian politicians who have lately argued for the use of nuclear weapons against the Baltic states, or of the ISIS leaders who call for the deaths of all Christians and Jews. Just because their language sounds strange to us doesn’t mean that they, and those who follow them, don’t find it compelling, or that they won’t pursue their logic to its ultimate conclusion.
| Ah, Anne Applebaum. I saw Besoeker's headline and thought I might have to consider renewing my cancelled subscription to the Atlantic. But Ms. Applebaum is always compelling and almost always right. Wonder why she's slumming at the Atlantic? Or is that magazine beginning to get a clue? |
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