Try making a mare: Stalin on the value of people

In the midst of the foi furieuse of the Stakhanovite period, when everything was being made anew at extraordinary speed (and with massive disruption), the government of the USSR felt keenly the lack of trained specialist in all areas of work. So in an address to metal workers, Stalin observes:

People must be cultivated as tenderlyand carefully as a gardener cultivates a favouritefruit tree.

A slightly different image of the man who is charged with callously slaughtering millions, drooling while...