The premier of Great Russia quotes English proverbs:
"'Dead men tell no tales.'" (p. 219)
"'"You cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs." Is an excellent saying.'" (p. 221)
He elaborates:
"'In the past I have found it necessary to sign death sentences of followers who had been valuable. I judged they were beginning to follow me too independently; or they had questionable associates...'" (p. 221)
He adds that he had a state to rebuild from chaos and could not investigate each case. His final metaphor is that of a woman having a cancerous breast cut off. Ira Quick agrees that, just as you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, you can't maintain social order without breaking heads. Are such people the solution or the problem? The premier did not have to rebuild the Russian state at any cost. There are always alternative courses of action.
(On TV last night: spin an egg vigorously, then boil it. Apparently, it comes out of its shell as a miniature omelette.)
While Quick hears the premier explain in detail, the background Gregorian chant (see here) approaches its "...triumphant conclusion." (p. 222) Quick imagines triumph for his unworthy cause.
6 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I agree that when a leader is trying to pull together and rebuild a collapsed nation, he has to be sometimes hard. But calloused ruthlessness and total impatience with criticism or a loyal opposition are not the ways to go. A good example of the kind of near ideal ruler rebuilding a society would be S.M. Stirling's Mike Havel, the first Lord Bear. He was a very DETERMINED man who could be hard when it was necessary, but never callously so. And Lord Bear not only tolerated debate and criticism from his advisers and followers, he took steps to institutionalize this among the Bearkillers (I forget if it was called a House of Representatives).
So I disagree with the Premier of Great Russia.
Sean
The relevant -Russian- saying is not that dead men tell no tales.
It's "When a man causes you a problem, remember: no man, no problem. Because death solves all problems."
Russia has had a less fortunate history than we have.
"No man, no problem" works for those who are able to enforce it. Most of us, if we kill a man who gives us problems, have bigger problems!
Another saying is: "Repression works. But it doesn't work in moderation."
Or as a Turk I was talking to some time ago said to me, "Turkey has big problems. But no big Armenian problem."
“…What I’m trying to do here is move beyond those ideas [of Good and Evil] into a world where no one has any reason to fight one another. But you can’t make an omelette without ruthlessly crushing dozens of eggs beneath your steel boot and then publicly disemboweling the chickens that laid them as a warning to others.”
— Tarquin (a very able tyrant), in webcomic Order of the Stick, Rich Burlew, 2010
He also says that even if his son (one of the heroes) defeats him, overthrows his empire, and slays him, Tarquin wins, by sheer virtue of it being an awesome story that will immortalize him as a legendary villain, remembered for all time. "If I win, I get to be a king. If I lose, I get to be a legend."
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