Quotessence
Home / Authors / Oliver Bullough

Oliver Bullough Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

AllSoviet RussiaAlcoholismCommunismRussiaBetrayalKgbOrthodox ChristianityReligionSocial BreakdownTrust

Famous Oliver Bullough Quotes

“The Soviet state was, in fact, almost perfectly designed to make people unhappy. It denied its citizens not just hope, but also trust. Every activity had to be sanctioned by the state. Any person could be an informant. No action could be guaranteed to be without consequence. Father Dmitry preached friendship and warmth and belief to his parishioners, and inspired a generation to live as humans and not as parts of a machine.”

ReligionCommunismSoviet Russia
Book:The Last Man in Russia: The Struggle to Save a Dying Nation
Create image

“[Father Dmitry] “lived through collectivization, the crushing of the 80 percent of Russians that were peasants. He served as a soldier in World War Two, when millions of peasants died defending the government that had crushed them. He spent eight years in the gulag, the network of labour camps created to break the spirit of anyone who still resisted. He rose again to speak out for his parishioners in the 1960’s and 1970’s, striving to help young Russians create a freer and fairer society.”

Soviet Russia
Book:The Last Man in Russia: The Struggle to Save a Dying Nation
Create image

“Father Dmitry had thought he had been serving his nation by spreading trust, and fighting abortion and despair, but, in doing so, he was defying the state. And that was not allowed. That was why he had to be crushed. His fate parallels the fate of his whole nation. Through the twentieth century, the government in Moscow taught the Russians that hope and trust are dangerous, inimical and treacherous. That is the root of the social breakdown that has caused the epidemic of alcoholism, the collapsing birth rate, the crime and the misery.”

RussiaAlcoholismSocial Breakdown
Author:Oliver Bullough
Create image

“In this way, the Church was a true reflection of the whole of Russian society. The KGB and the Russian people had penetrated each other to such an extent that they could not be separated. The culture of betrayal and suspicion and distrust that the KGB relied on had become part of the national culture, poisoning politics in the 1990s and beyond: decades of corruption, murder and sordid sex scandals. If it cannot purge itself, however, the Russian nation will never rid itself of the illness that has driven people to alcohol. Russians need to trust each other again.”

RussiaCommunismAlcoholismKgbOrthodox Christianity
Author:Oliver Bullough
Create image