\u201cStalin\u2019s Approval Rating Among Russians Hits Record High \u2013 Poll\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
My dear friend Professor Louis Midgley, who taught Tocqueville\u2019s classic Democracy in America<\/em> (1835, 1840) for many years at Brigham Young University, shared the following in the comments section to my blog, and I think it deserves more prominence here:<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
The final five paragraphs of Alexis de Tocqueville\u2019s first volume of\u00a0Democracy in America<\/i>, Mansfield and Winthrop translation (University of Chicago Press), on pages 395-6, read as follows :<\/span><\/p>\nThere are two great peoples on the earth today who, starting from different points, seem to advance toward the same goal: these are the Russians and the Anglo-Americans.<\/i><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nBoth have grown larger in obscurity; and while men\u2019s regards were occupied elsewhere, they have suddenly taken their place in the first rank of nations, and the world has learned of their birth and of their greatness almost at the same time.<\/i><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nAll other peoples appear to have nearly reached the limits that nature has drawn and to have nothing more to do than preserve themselves; but these are growing; all others have halted or advance only with a thousand efforts; these alone march ahead at an easy and rapid pace on a course whose bounds the eye cannot see.<\/i><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nThe American struggles with the obstacles that nature opposes to him; the Russian grapples with men. The one combats the wilderness and barbarism, the other, civilization vested with all its arms: thus the conquests of the American are made with the plowshare of the laborer, those of the Russian, with the sword and the soldier.<\/i><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nTo attain his goal, the first relies on personal interest and allows the force and the reason of individuals to act, without directing them.<\/i><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nThe second in a way concentrates all the power of society in one man.<\/i><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nThe one has freedom for his principal means of action; the other servitude.<\/i><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nTheir point of departure is different, their ways are diverse; nonetheless, each of them seems called by a secret design of Providence to hold the destinies of half of the world in its hand one day.<\/i><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 *** \u00a0 \u201cUkrainian prayers of faith: Watch CNN footage of citizens praying in public square\u201d \u00a0 Over the past couple of days, I\u2019ve posted blog entries here that, among other things, have alluded to religious dimensions of the struggle between Russia and Ukraine.\u00a0 I\u2019m grateful to certain readers of this blog for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1809,28328,19202,28266,28263,2905,1812,1815,7113,788,55,1667,28254,4315,18052,2292,641,28251,28325,28257,28260],"class_list":["post-94343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints","tag-holodomor","tag-joseph-stalin","tag-kiev","tag-kyiv","tag-latter-day-saint","tag-latter-day-saints","tag-lds","tag-lds-church","tag-mormon","tag-mormonism","tag-mormons","tag-putin","tag-russia","tag-soviet-union","tag-stalin","tag-temple","tag-ukraine","tag-ukrainian-terror-famine","tag-vladimir","tag-vladimir-putin"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>