The Icon and the Axe Quotes

“High Stalinism provided a kind of retribution. Russia suddenly found itself ruled by Byzantine ritualism without Byzantine reverence or beauty, and by Western scientism without Western freedom of inquiry. One is tempted to see in the terrible climax, the “cleansing” (chistka) of the purge period, either total absurdity or some new and unprecedented form of totalitarian logic. But to the cultural historian, the horrors of High Stalinism may appear neither as an accidental intrusion upon, nor an inevitable by-product of, the Russian heritage. If he adopts the ironic perspective, he might even conclude that the cleansing did lead to a kind of purification far deeper than that which was intended—that innocent suffering created the possibility for fresh accomplishment.”
― James H. Billington, The Icon and Axe: An Interpretative History of Russian Culture

“Nicholas Turgenev in his Russia and the Russians in 1847 eloquently restated the classical enlightened arguments for constitutional monarchy; but this was the voice of an old man writing in Paris.”
― James Billington, The Icon and Axe: An Interpretative History of Russian Culture