Donald G. Boudreau > Quotes

“Russian love of justice is far less vigorous than Russian respect for brute force, and that in practice, what passes for love of justice is simply a kind of equalitarianism which says that no one should live better than the next person.  This idea of justice is motivated by hatred of everything outstanding which we (Russians) make no effort to imitate, but, on the contrary, try to bring down to our level, by hatred of any sense of initiative, of any higher or more dynamic way of life than the life we live ourselves.  This psychology is, of course, most typical of the peasantry and least typical of the “middle class.”  However, peasants and those of peasant origin constitute the overwhelming majority of our country.”
― Donald G. Boudreau, Resistance in the Gulag Archipelago