Anne Applebaum

Leon Trotsky, Stalin's worst enemy, was far and away his most influential 20th-century interpreter, shaping the views of a generation of historians,…

— Anne Applebaum

For hundreds of millions of people, the fall of the Berlin Wall was a great triumph: The moment marked the end of…

— Anne Applebaum

Donald Trump has never tried to reach out to all the American people, he never uses the language of unity, he doesn't…

— Anne Applebaum

If we can't have a public debate because the information space is so polluted, or because people are afraid of the reactions…

— Anne Applebaum

Russian scorn for liberal democracy has a long history, and a certain kind of Russian disdain for the West is nothing new.…

— Anne Applebaum

At times when people fear death, they go along with measures that they believe, rightly or wrongly, will save them - even…

— Anne Applebaum

Profound political shifts - events that suddenly split families and friends, cut across social classes, and dramatically rearrange alliances - do not…

— Anne Applebaum

Many people no longer trust major media outlets to give them valuable information - and they may never do so again.

— Anne Applebaum

There's a reason nationalists build walls, denigrate foreigners, and denounce immigrants: Because our people are better than those people. There's a reason…

— Anne Applebaum

We don't live in a culture of censorship, such as the Soviet Union's; we live in a culture where there is too…

— Anne Applebaum

Elections are always a Rorschach test - people look at the results and see what they want to see.

— Anne Applebaum

We can't continue assuming that politics is something which is decided elsewhere by distant leaders in a distant capital. Protest is insufficient…

— Anne Applebaum

At different times my children went to Polish, British, and American schools, and they learned about 'the nation' in all of them.

— Anne Applebaum

Most of the people buying the Soviet paraphernalia were Americans and West Europeans. All would be sickened by the thought of wearing…

— Anne Applebaum

Democracy in some ways is a very illogical political system. When you win an election, you have to preserve the institutions that…

— Anne Applebaum

Do not read 'Hard Choices' if you seek a nuanced analysis of the people who run the world's foreign policy, let alone…

— Anne Applebaum

There will instead be a number of fake opposition figures, one of whom is now probably going to be Kseniya Sobchak, which…

— Anne Applebaum

Khodorkovsky is richest man. And he lost everything when Putin arrested him and took his company away, and essentially took his company…

— Anne Applebaum

The evolution of a bourgeoisie is a healthy phenomenon when it grows and prospers thanks to bourgeois values: hard work, honesty, personal…

— Anne Applebaum

“One might say that, until now, the social, cultural, and political framework for knowledge of the Gulag has not been in place.…

— Anne Applebaum

Donald Trump may undermine some of the traditional checks on the presidency: the press in particular, but also the various government and…

— Anne Applebaum

Globalization has genuinely drained power away from national politicians and people feel it. People in our fast digital age are also frustrated…

— Anne Applebaum

Americans, as a rule, rarely compare themselves with other countries, so convinced are we that our system is superior, that our politicians…

— Anne Applebaum

Clearly, the inhabitants of stable democracies find it hard to appreciate what they have: 'You don't know what you've got 'til it's…

— Anne Applebaum

“Totalitarian regimes, they declared, all had at least five things in common: a dominant ideology, a single ruling party, a secret police…

— Anne Applebaum