Terrorist success depends on support from polite liberal society

Saturday, November 24th, 2018

Gary Saul Morson concludes his history of Russian terrorism with these words:

Dostoyevsky’s Possessed had suggested that terrorist success depends on support from polite liberal society, and that proved accurate. The division of people into friends and enemies, the celebration of righteous anger, and the romanticization of violence eventually led to a state based on sheer terror. In the name of the many, the radical intelligentsia and their liberal defenders made possible the rule of the chosen few.

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