The cure for any political ideology is to live under it for a while.
Ruling
In ’37 Stalin made a hash
Of party loyalists and army brass.
Decimation: One in ten are shot.
What’s the word when one in ten are not?
All vandals belong to the same party.
It is almost no time at all between not being permitted to dissent and not being permitted to abstain.
Professing communism never saved a kulak, and professing Nazism never saved a Jew. Only the religious fanatics are that sporting.
Pas d’ennemi à gauche eventually begets pas d’ennemi à droite.
At the beginning you go to the gulag for criticizing Stalin; toward the end for being first, when his name is mentioned, to stop applauding.
Nazism is worse than Bolshevism, because everybody’s sober.
A government not of men but of laws — written by men, interpreted by men, and enforced by men.
The consolation prize for being out of power is unswerving commitment to timeless civic principles.
Merit is only achievement, and meritocracy only mandarinism.