Hitler and Stalin had much in common. Both had alcholic fathers who beat them senseless. Both had religious mothers who tried to protect them. Both encouraged their sons to enter the priesthood. Too bad neither one followed their mother’s advice. Millions of lives would have been spared.
From the book:
“As Stalin interpreted the disaster of collectivization in the last weeks of 1932, he achieved a new height of ideological daring. The famine in Ukraine, whose existence he had admitted earlier, when it was far less severe, was now a “fairy tale,” a slanderous rumor spread by enemies. Stalin had developed an interesting new theory: that resistance to socialism increases as its successes mount, because its foes resist with greater desperation as they contemplate their final defeat...”
My my. These rationals sound shockingly familiar.