The man who lost an empire

In 1921, the year before he founded the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Vladimir Lenin challenged his fellow Bolsheviks with a rhetorical question: “Who overtakes whom?” Joseph Stalin preferred a starker version: “Who-whom?” Both saw politics as a deadly competition in which the winner takes all—war by other means. [author-bio] So does Vladimir Putin. He … Continue reading The man who lost an empire