--- Turbulo at aol.com wrote:
> Stalin said some pithier things than the ones cited
> by Montefiori. Among
> them:
>
> "Dead men don't cause problems."
I think this is probably a loose translation of the Vozhd's famous quip, "Net chelovek -- net problem" (No person, no problem).
This book is full of cool little anecdotes. For instance, on the eve of the Nazi invasion, Stalin mocked Hitler by putting on a production of The Ride of the Valkyries directed by the Jewish Eisenstein and with a Jewish singer playing Wotan. He also enjoyed forcing Ribbentrop to toast to Jewish members of the Politburo.
Stalin on Hitler:
I agree that he was an adventurer but I can't agree he was mad. Hitler was a gifted man. Only a gifted man could unite the German people. Like it or not... the Soviet Army fought their way into the German land... and reached Berlin without the German working class ever striking against ... the Fascist regime. Could a madman so unite his nation?"
On the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki:
"War is barbaric, but using the A-Bomb is a superbarbarity. And there was no need to use it. Japan was already doomed!"
Nothing about walls, unfortunately.
===== Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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