Quote by Steven Lee Myers

“The fundamental principle of the Russian government has always been the autocratic ruler who combines all legislative and executive powers and disposes of all…

— Martin Sixsmith

“The only real recourse that [Russian] people had against tsarist rule was violence and rebellion. It was once remarked that Russia's constitution was "absolutism…

— Alan Beattie

“Russia was a kleptocracy, all the power in the hands of a corrupt few. The term thrown around these days was “elite capture”; the…

— Mark Greaney

On the Russian revolutionaries:To leave your parents, faithful and loyal subjects of the Emperor, to leave your profession, to desist from having children, to…

— Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy

This power, this authority, Soviet power: they killed everybody who could make any resistance, who could explain his own way of thinking and who…

— Vladimir Bukovsky

“And why was I still here? I felt I was killing time, especially in Russia, which, in spite of all the talk of change…

— Paul Theroux

“The only way, they argued, to prevent a revolution was to rule Russia with an iron hand. This meant defending the autocratic principle, the…

— Orlando Figes

The unspoken contract between ruler and subject is that in return for safety, prosperity, and prestige, the Russians entrust power and cede democratic freedoms…

— Simon Sebag Montefiore

And revolutions always mean the breakdown of old authority.

— Hu Shih

“At the time of the October Revolution, the Russian intellectual elite had been both a part and a partner to the European conversation about…

— Masha Gessen

“The great writer was mortally afraid of the rising generation of young revolutionaries, and imagining, through his ignorance of things, that they held the…

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky