A “dim but not commonplace” appearance with a face marked by “morose concentration” was how Leon Trotsky recalled his first encounter with Josef Stalin in Vienna in 1913, 27 years before Stalin ordered a Mexican agent to fatally plunge an ice-axe into Trotsky’s cranium. A“grey blur” was how the prominent Menshevik Nikolai Sukhanov described the future Soviet dictator in 1917, the year of the Bolshevik seizure of power, a world-historical event in which Stalin, a priesthood dropout turned bank robber, played no discernible role. Sukhanov was later jailed, then shot.
Russia's War Against Ukraine
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Michael Weiss: Vladimir Putin, the petty strongman who straddles the world
FIFA President Gianni Infantino (FRONT) speaks as Russian President Vladimir Putin (C), First Vice President of the Russian Football Union Nikita Simonyan (L) and former Danish footballer Peter Schmeichel (R) look on during a meeting with world football legends at the Kremlin in Moscow on July 6, during the 2018 Russia World Cup tournament.
