It was our mistake that led to this desecration and killing
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1717671,00.html
Forget revisiting Berlin 1945 or Saigon 1975. There is still a chance
of pulling out in good order
Martin Kettle
Saturday February 25, 2006
The Guardian
In Vasily Grossman's remarkable novel Life and Fate, there is a
powerful scene in which two Bolsheviks encounter one another as
prisoners in one of Stalin's labour camps in 1942. The younger
Bolshevik, Abarchuk, who is convinced he is there in error, remains a
believer in the cause; but his older mentor, Magar, has gained wisdom
through experience. When the two comrades snatch what turns out to be
their final conversation, Magar looks around the camp and distils their
years of revolutionary experience in words of terrible simplicity and
force. "We made a mistake," he tells Abarchuk. "And this is what our
mistake has led to."
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