"Do not look in the file of incriminating evidence to see whether or not the accused rose up against the Soviets with arms or words. Ask him instead to which class he belongs, what is his background, his education, his profession. These are the questions that will determine the fate of the accused. That is the meaning and essence of the Red Terror."
-- Martin Latsis, head of the Ukrainian Cheka under Dzerzhinsky and Lenin, as cited in Yevgenia Albats and Catherine A. Fitzpatrick, The State Within a State: The KGB and Its Hold on Russia - Past, Present, and Future, 1994
Similar to the weak incrimination through circumstantial evidence of the "If you see something, say something" program.
ReplyDeleteGot awareness ???
Got Freedom ???
CA
ReplyDeleteQuite pertinent and appropriate.
On many levels.
Papers, please?
;-)
AP
Sometimes you just gotta ask, "who DID win the cold war?"
ReplyDeleteScarily prescient of our own "Cheka," the shrill liberal media, which condemns --or exonerates as in the case of the child rapists in Texas-- people in the court of public opinion without research or trial, merely on the basis of class or social status.
ReplyDelete