Red Army Quotes

still under siege, but the Red Army had regained two-thirds of ~ Susan Butler

They see in the political apathy of the proletariat only the apathy, not the protest against a system that has nothing to offer them. ~ Red Army Faction

Putin was a former KGB intelligence officer who'd been stationed in East Germany at the Dresden headquarters of the Soviet secret service. Putin has said in interviews that he dreamed as a child of becoming a spy for the communist party in foreign lands, and his time in Dresden exceeded his imagination. Not only was he living out his boyhood fantasy, he and his then-wife also enjoyed the perks of a borderline-European existence. Even in communist East Germany, the standard of living was far more comfortable than life in Russia, and the young Putins were climbing KGB social circles, making influential connections, networking a power base.

The present was bright, and the future looked downright luminous.

Then, the Berlin wall fell, and down with it crashed Putin's world. A few days after the fall, a group of East German protestors gathered at the door of the secret service headquarters building. Putin, fearing the headquarters would be overrun, dialed up a Red Army tank unit stationed nearby to ask for protection. A voice on the other end of the line told him the unit could not do anything without orders from Moscow. And, "Moscow is silent," the man told Putin.

Putin's boyhood dream was dissolving before his eyes, and his country was impotent or unwilling to stop it. Putin despised his government's weakness in the face of threat. It taught him a lesson that would inform his own rule: Power is easily lost when those in power allow it to be tak ~ Matt Szajer

So I had to be the doctor to these wounded men until we could remove them to the hospital. There were fifty-four women and forty little boys with the Red Army prisoners, and I went daily to take care of them also. ~ Agnes Smedley

(1) a sound mass base, (2) a sound Party organization, (3) a fairly strong Red Army, (4) terrain favourable to military operations, and (5) economic resources sufficient for sustenance. ~ Mao Zedong

I was in Estonia when a professor asked me if I was aware that making any criticism of the Red Army during the war was now an imprisonable offence. I was quite shaken. ~ Antony Beevor

We're not feeling edgy; the system is feeling nervous. ~ Red Army Faction

Now there is a modern-day anthropology* for the criminal type: a great number of so-called 'born criminals' have pale faces, large cheekbones, a coarse lower jaw, and deeply shining eyes. How can one not recall this when one thinks of Lenin and thousands like him? How many pale faces, high cheekbones and strikingly asymmetric features mark the soldiers of the Red Army and, generally speaking, also of the common Russian people - how many of them, these savage types, have Mongolian atavism directly in their blood! They are all from Murom, the white-eyed Chud. And it is precisely these individuals, these very Russichi, who gave us so many 'daring pirates', so many vagabonds, escapees, scoundrels and tramps - it is precisely these people whom we have recruited for the glory, pride and hope of the Russian social revolution. So why should we feign surprise at the results? ~ Ivan Bunin

It was my view that the catastrophe ... could have been avoided if Vasilevsky had taken the position he should have. He could have taken a different position ... but he didn't do that, and as a result, in my view, he had a hand in the destruction of thousands of Red Army fighters in the Kharkov campaign. ~ Aleksandr Vasilevsky

The Long March The Red Army is not afraid of hardship on the march, the long march. Ten thousand waters and a thousand mountains are nothing. The Five Sierras meander like small waves, the summits of Wumeng pour on the plain like balls of clay. Cliffs under clouds are warm and washed below by the River Gold Sand. Iron chains are cold, reaching over the Tatu River. The far snows of Minshan only make us happy and when the army pushes through, we all laugh. October 1935 ~ Mao Zedong

He guessed the NKVD didn't even know that Waffen-SS men could be identified by the blood-group tattoos on the underside of their left arms, usually near the armpit. Richter didn't have one. He'd been classed as a non-combatant, as he'd said, at least for a portion of the war. He decided it could be weeks before they found out who he was.
But Volsky's confidence appeared to have been restored too, now. He said, 'And the vat of incense?'
'I had the incense brought from the remnants of a Christmas smoker factory. Silly little hollow figurines invented by toymakers in the Ore Mountains. Cone incense burns down inside the figurines and the smoke emerges from the open mouths. There was a glut of them,' Richter said, truthfully. 'Berliners were shocked and saddened after Stalingrad. But they lost the will to celebrate after the Battle of Kursk. They knew the Red Army was coming. The puerile little incense smokers were redundant, together with the incense they were to hold. Except it didn't go to waste. The vat was taken from a merchant's house. It's from Hong Kong, I think.'
Volsky leaned back in his chair. He said, 'Why go to all the trouble?'
That's a good question, Richter thought.
He stifled a smile. 'To mask the smell. ~ Gary Haynes

What with the political monopoly, the Cheka and the Red Army, all that now existed of the 'Commune-State' of our dreams was a theoretical myth. The war, the internal measures against counterrevolution, and the famine (which had created a bureaucratic rationing apparatus) had killed off Soviet democracy. How could it revive, and when? The Party lived in the certain knowledge that the slightest relaxation of its authority would give day to reaction. ~ Victor Serge

My dad was in the Swedish armed forces, he was always reading up on different weapons from the Americans and Soviets. When I was a kid, I was in bed looking at his books, reading about the Red Army. So I was very aware of it. I had an interest in military matters ever since. ~ Dolph Lundgren

In that case, do not expect to be rescued by the Red Army, Gorbachev said. ~ Ken Follett

In the center of the movement, as the motor that swings it onto motion, sits the Leader. He is separated from the elite formation by an inner circle of the initiated who spread around him an aura of impenetrable mystery which corresponds to his "intangible preponderance." His position within this intimate circle depends upon his ability to spin intrigues among its members and upon his skill in constantly changing its personnel. He owes his rise to leadership to an extreme ability to handle inner-party struggles for power rather than to demagogic or bureaucratic-organizational qualities. He is distinguished from earlier types of dictators in that he hardly wins through simple violence. Hitler needed neither the SA nor the SS to secure his position as leader of the Nazi movement; on the contrary, Röhm, the chief of the SA and able to count upon its loyalty to his own person, was one of Hitler's inner-party enemies. Stalin won against Trotsky, who not only had a far greater mass appeal but, as chief of the Red Army, held in his hands the greatest power potential in Soviet Russia at the time. Not Stalin, but Trotsky, moreover, was the greatest organizational talent, the ablest bureaucrat of the Russian Revolution. On the other hand, both Hitler and Stalin were masters of detail and devoted themselves in the early stages of their careers almost entirely to questions of personnel, so that after a few years hardly any man of importance remained who did not owe his position to them. ~ Hannah Arendt

The Red Army ... swept the native population clean in a manner that has no parallel since the days of the Asiatic hordes. ~ George F. Kennan

Poland, after the First World War, was beset by chaos, disorder, and a foolish incursion by the Red Army, which helped to produce the ultra-nationalist military dictatorship of General Pilsudski. ~ Tariq Ali

Following this logic, to bomb BASF in Ludwigshafen would be to mock the people who bombed BASF in Brazil. The Latin American comrades feel differently. BASF does as well. ~ Red Army Faction

We know what we want. To us it means nothing that there is a Soviet Union somewhere in the world, for the sake of whose peace and tranquillity the workers of Germany and China were sacrificed to Fascist barbarians by Stalin. We want revolution here in Spain, right now, not maybe after the next European war. We are giving Hitler and Mussolini far more worry with our revolution than the whole Red Army of Russia. We are setting an example to the German and Italian working class on how to deal with Fascism. ~ Buenaventura Durruti

One has this image of the Soviet state and the Red Army as being extremely disciplined but in the first four months of 1945 their soldiers were completely out of control. ~ Antony Beevor

The weather was worsening, but winter was not the enemy of the Russian soldier; thirteen million pairs of fleece-lined boots stamped Made in the USA ensured that the Red Army marched in relative comfort. ~ William Manchester

The Red Army is advancing with giant strides ... Hitler will not be able to harm us, even if he wants to ... ~ Elie Wiesel

That was his moment in Leningrad, on an empty street, when his life became possible - when Alexander became possible. There he stood as he was - a young Red Army officer in dissolution, all his days stamped with no future and all his appetites unrestrained, on patrol the day war started for Russia. He stood with his rifle slung on his shoulder and cast his wanton eyes on her, eating her ice cream all sunny, singing, blonde, blossoming, breathtaking. He gazed at her with his entire unknowable life in front of him, and this is what he was thinking ...
To cross the street or not to cross?
To follow her? To hop on the bus, after her? What absolute madness. ~ Paullina Simons

In America, conservative historian Francis Fukuyama wrote that the collapse of the Soviet Union marked not just the end of the Cold War, but the end of history: liberal capitalist democracy had won, no ideology could challenge it anymore, and nothing remained but a little cleanup work around the edges while all the world got on board the train headed for the only truth. …

On the other side of the planet, however, jihadists and Wahhabis were drawing very different conclusions from all these thunderous events [Iran's 1979 revolution and ouster of US presence and the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan]. In Iran, it seemed to them, Islam had brought down the Shah and driven out America. In Afghanistan, Muslims had not just beaten the Red Army but toppled the Soviet Union itself. Looking at all this, Jihadists saw a pattern they thought they recognized. The First Community had defeated the two superpowers of its day, the Byzantine and Sassanid Empires, simply by having God on its side. Modern Muslims also confronted two superpowers, and they had now brought one of them down entirely. On down, one to go was how it looked to the jihadists and the Wahabbis. History coming to an end? Hardly. As these radicals saw it, history was just getting interesting. ~ Tamim Ansary

I've always wanted to go to Switzerland to see what the army does with those wee red knives. ~ Billy Connolly

Let's keep our boots polished, bayonets sharpened, and present a picture of force and strength to the Red Army. This is the only language they understand and respect. ~ George S. Patton

What was achieved under Nazi-fascism through bloody terror against the organized workers' movement and the people is to be achieved again today in West Europe through the information society ~ Red Army Faction

But in every country occupied by the Red Army, the definition of 'fascist' eventually grew broader, expanding to include not only Nazi collaborators but anybody whom the Soviet occupiers and their local allies disliked. In time, the word 'fascist,' in true Orwellian fashion, was eventually used to describe antifascists who also happened to be anticommunists. And every time the definition was expanded, arrests followed. p.86 ~ Anne Applebaum

An army of the people is invincible! ~ Mao Zedong

At the beginning of June 1944, the war was reaching a climax. German troops had been brutalised by the savagery of the ongoing fighting in Russia, where the Red Army was secretly preparing its vast encirclement of the Germans' Army Group Centre. ~ Antony Beevor

That red carpet has to be felt to be believed. ~ William H. Macy

May with its light behaving
Stirs vessel, eye and limb,
The singular and sad
Are willing to recover,
And to each swan-delighting river
The careless picnics come
In living white and red.

Our dead, remote and hooded,
In hollows rest, but we
From their vague woods have broken,
Forests where children meet
And the white angel-vampires flit,
Stand now with shaded eye,
The dangerous apple taken.

The real world lies before us,
Brave motions of the young,
Abundant wish for death,
The pleasing, pleasured, haunted:
A dying Master sinks tormented
In his admirers' ring,
The unjust walk the earth.

And love that makes impatient
Tortoise and roe, that lays
The blonde beside the dark,
Urges upon our blood,
Before the evil and the good
How insufficient is
Touch, endearment, look. ~ W. H. Auden

There was another restaurant, rustic and small, with red checkered cloths on the tables, and a kitchen you could see into from the dining area, and they all were there together. ~ Scott Cawthon

But, did the Divinity [of Christ] suffer? [ ... ] The holy fathers explained this point through the aforementioned clear example of the red-hot iron, it is the analogy equated for the Divine Nature which became united with the human nature. They explained that when the blacksmith strikes the red-hot iron, the hammer is actually striking both the iron and the fire united with it. The iron alone bends (suffers) whilst the fire is untouched though it bends with the iron. ~ Pope Shenouda III Of Alexandria

Small, red, and upright he waited,
gripping his new bookbag tight
in one hand and touching a lucky penny inside his coat pocket with the other,
while the first snows of winter
floated down on his eyelashes and covered the branches around him and silenced
all trace of the world. ~ Anne Carson

They drank from a spring which filled an ancient stone trough behind the ruin. Beyond it lay overgrown beds and plants John had never set eyes on before: tall resinous fronds, prickly shrubs, long grey-green leaves hot to the tongue. Nestling among them he found the root whose scent drifted among the trees like a ghost, sweet and tarry. He knelt and pressed it to his nose.
'That was called silphium.' His mother stood behind him. 'It grew in Saturnus's first garden.'
She showed him the most ancient trees in the orchards, their gnarled trunks cloaked in grey lichen. Palm trees had grown there too once, she claimed. Now even their stumps had gone.
Each day, John left the hearth to forage in the wreckage of Belicca's gardens. His nose guided him through the woods. Beyond the chestnut avenue, the wild skirrets, alexanders and broom grew in drifts. John chased after rabbits or climbed trees in search of birds' eggs. He returned with mallow seeds or chestnuts that they pounded into meal then mixed with water and baked on sticks. The unseasonal orchards yielded tiny red and gold-streaked apples, hard green pears and sour yellow cherries. ~ Lawrence Norfolk

The captain of the Titanic, who said to room service, Who sent for all this ice? Never got a dinner! ~ Red Buttons

The conventional view of a person's self-command structure is definitely bureaucratic, on the model of a corporation or an army, where superior agents simply pass commands down to inferior ones. However, closer examination of corporations and
armies has shown that despite the establishment of hierarchical command structures, they remain marketplaces where officers must motivate rather than simply ordering behaviors. ~ George Ainslie

I feel as if I could touch the sky. Run my jeweled claws across the clouds and make the sky bleed red starlight. ~ Victoria Aveyard

Everything becomes agitated. Ideas quick-march into motion like battalions of a grand army to its legendary fighting ground, and the battle rages. Memories charge in, bright flags on high; the cavalry of metaphor deploys with a magnificent gallop; the artillery of logic rushes up with clattering wagons and cartridges; on imagination's orders, sharpshooters sight and fire; forms and shapes and characters rear up; the paper is spread with ink - for the nightly labor begins and ends with torrents of this black water, as a battle opens and concludes with black powder. ~ Honore De Balzac

Sometimes the toilet paper does not win. Sometimes a broke woman needs the red wine more. ~ Shonda Rhimes

Say "no" only when it really matters. Wear a bright red shirt with bright orange shorts? Sure. Put water in the toy tea set? Okay. Sleep with your head at the foot of the bed? Fine. Samuel Johnson said, "All severity that does not tend to increase good, or prevent evil, is idle. ~ Gretchen Rubin

The problem with writing a monthly book is that you're going through your work like a man running for a bus, red-faced and out of breath. There isn't time for reflection or critical self-examination. ~ J. Michael Straczynski

I'm a jeans and T-shirt kind of girl. ~ Cameron Diaz

All right, clearly the two of you" - Jack gestured to Nancy as she stripped off her gloves - "were meant to be together. If you can't find your doors, you should get married and breed the next generation of creepy world-traveling children."
Christopher's cheeks turned red. Nancy's didn't. It was a pleasant change. ~ Seanan McGuire

Green, red, and mixed shades of haemins are known. If magnesium is replaced by iron in chlorophyll, green haemins are obtained. Their colour is due to a strong band in the red which is already recognized in chlorophyll. ~ Otto Heinrich Warburg

Foreign, for sure. But we all bleed the same color red. No doubt about that. The truth of that statement was plain to see. Reacher put the guy out of misery. A single shot, close range, behind the ear. An unnecessary round expended, but good manners had a price ~ Lee Child

It's about Nietzsche's theory of universal debt. Your parents make it possible for you to believe a far better myth than Santa. They let you think that you, as a kid, don't owe the world a thing. The world can give you, even if just for a few minutes, utter joy without requiring anything from you. It's not about consumerism. As far as you know, no one buys you these presents. They come out of nothingness, with fantasies of elves attached. You aren't required to be grateful to your parents or anything like that. They can give to you and nothing is required in return. When you get old enough, when you have kids, you get to enact this myth for them. It has nothing to do with any fat man in a red suit, no matter what we tell ourselves. It's about owing nothing, and then realizing that you have to do this job of perpetuating this ... this fantasy world, whether you like it or not. ~ Thomm Quackenbush

She couldn't have been more than twelve years old. In her hands was a sign that said RED-HEADS RULE! with a little crown painted in the corner and tiny stars everywhere. I knew I was the only redhead in the competition, and I noticed that her hair and mine were very nearly the same shade. ~ Kiera Cass

This morning, I'm relishing the perks of working for the Underworld. I press my foot down on the accelerator, and the deep rumble of my candy apple-red Escalade growls. My new baby girl has black leather, Bose surround sound, and twenty-two inch rimes. Match.com couldn't have created a happier couple. ~ Victoria Scott

I believe every woman should own at least one pair of red shoes. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

Chili, spice of red Thursday, which is the day of reckoning. Day which invites us to pick up the sack of our existence and shake it inside out. Day of suicide, day of murder. ~ Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

At the red light, I looked around. Some guy in the next car had his window down and was giving me the once-over. Sometimes I get embarrassed when people catch me singing, particularly when I'm crying at the same time. But today, here, in the first moments of my New Beginning, I didn't give a shit. ~ Lili Wright

I thought comedians had to have black on their faces or red beards. ~ Dorothy Gish

A blond vampire in a garnet-red frock. She was lovely, and pale as new snow: Cordelia thought of the mundane women who paid to have their faces enameled white to preserve their youth and keep their fashionable pallor.
They ought to just become vampires, she thought. It would be less expensive. ~ Cassandra Clare

This isn't a mob, won't need to change the names. Everyone around you has murdered someone, something sacred. There isn't one nail without dirt under it. There isn't any white cotton panties that aren't soaked and stained red. It's better to push something when it's slipping, than to risk being dragged down. ~ Marilyn Manson

A Dom intent on developing a relationship will approach you on a personal level first. ~ Red Phoenix

There may be a hundred thousand men in an army, who are all equally free; but they only are naturally most fit to be commanders or leaders, who most excel in the virtues required for the right performance of those offices. ~ Algernon Sidney

I once donated a pint of my finest red corpuscles to the great American Red Cross and the doctor opined my blood was very helpful; contained so much alcohol they could use it to sterilize their instruments. ~ W.C. Fields

Evening Concert, Sainte-Chapelle
The celebrated windows flamed with light
directly pouring north across the Seine;
we rustled into place. Then violins
vaunting Vivaldi's strident strength, then Brahms,
seemed to suck with their passionate sweetness,
bit by bit, the vigor from the red,
the blazing blue, so that the listening eye
saw suddenly the thick black lines, in shapes
of shield and cross and strut and brace, that held
the holy glowing fantasy together.
The music surged; the glow became a milk,
a whisper to the eye, a glimmer ebbed
until our beating hearts, our violins
were cased in thin but solid sheets of lead. ~ John Updike

As life goes on, you will join other bands, some through friendship, some through romance, some through neighborhoods, school, an army. Maybe you will all dress the same, or laugh at your own private vocabulary. Maybe you will flop on couches backstage, or share a boardroom table, or crowd around a galley inside a ship. But in each band you join, you will play a distinct part, and it will affect you as much as you affect it. ~ Mitch Albom

The idea for me came when I was watching a 60 Minutes segment about resveratrol, the chemical in red wine that lets you live longer, supposedly. And they were like, "Who knows, maybe one day it will help to cure aging." And I thought, "Well, if they did that, we'd all kill each other." And then I laughed, and then I thought about how precisely that would happen. That's how the book came to be. ~ Drew Magary

She remained on the steps, waiting for Papa, watching the stray ash and the corpse of collected books. Everything was sad. Orange and red embers looked like rejected candy, and most of the crowd had vanished. She'd seen Frau Diller leave (very satisfied) and Pfiffikus (white hair, a Nazi uniform, the same dilapidated shoes, and a triumphant whistle). Now there was nothing but cleaning up, and soon, no one would ever imagine it had happened.
But you could smell it. ~ Markus Zusak

As we go forward in life, we come more and more to realize the wisdom of being obedient, not because we are afraid of the law, but because we recognize the importance, wisdom, and necessity of law in civilized life. Freedom within the law is indispensable if your life is to be rich and radiant. Liberty is a prized possession, which should be jealously guarded, but it may be jeopardized by disobedience. We should not assume that liberty and license are synonymous.

Sometimes we find people of all ages who resent regulations, restraints, or prohibitions of any kind. They seem to assume that rebellious disregard for rules or laws indicates emancipation and independence. In a foolish attempt to demonstrate their freedom they lose it, forgetting that real liberty can only be enjoyed by obedience to law.

Consider for a moment our traffic laws, with their daily toll of suffering, loss, and death. It must be evident to all that these laws are enacted and enforced for the good and protection of people and property. Is it not, therefore, foolhardy to endanger oneself and others simply to show one's independence or importance. Of course, we may disregard the traffic laws, drive on the wrong side of the street, exceed speed limits, go through red lights, just for the satisfaction of showing off and doing as we please, but if we continue to act in such an irresponsible manner, we must eventually pay a price all out of proportion to any momentary satisfaction. . . .
Hugh B. Brown

Kaz heard Wylan retching. He tossed the eyeball overboard and jammed his spit-soaked handkerchief into the socket where Oomen's eye had been. Then he grabbed Oomen's jaw, his gloves leaving red smears on the enforcer's chin. His actions were smooth, precise, as if he were dealing cards at the Crow Club or picking an easy lock, but his rage felt hot and mad and unfamiliar. Something within him had torn loose. ~ Leigh Bardugo

we like to think of it as parallel to what we know
only bigger. one man against the authorities.
or one man against a city of zombies. one man

who is not, in fact, a man, sent to understand
the caravan of men now chasing him like red ants
let loose down the pants of america. man on the run. ~ Tracy K. Smith

For a moment nothing happens. The figure stands still and I stand cold and alive and-
He starts to run. I make my way down the rocks, slipping, sliding, trying to get to the plain. I wish, I think, my feet clumsy, moving too fast, not fast enough, I wish i could run, I wish I'd written a whole poem, I wish I kept the compass-
And then I reach the plain and wish for nothing but what I have. Ky. Running toward me. I have never seen him run like this, fast, free, strong, wild. He looks so beautiful, his body moves so right. He stops just close enough for me to see the blue of his eyes and forget the red on my hands and the green I wish I wore. "You're here," he says, breathing hard and hungry. sweat and dirt cover his face, and he looks at me as though I'm the only thing he ever needed to see. I open my mouth to say yes. But I only have time to breathe in before he closes the last of the distance. All I know is the kiss. ~ Ally Condie

They're Americans when they win races, and when they get conscripted into the army,' Dave said. 'But they're Negroes when they want to buy the house next door to yours. ~ Ken Follett

I am not a mortal to be taken," Favashi gritted out. "I am not a beast to be broken." Each word was red with power and anger and rage. "I am an archangel. ~ Nalini Singh

In Washington, the air quality today was described as 'red.' ... You know what 'red' is? It's bad for everyone. Not just old people, sick people and babies. When it's just bad for old people, sick people and babies, that's called a Republican budget. ~ Bill Maher

Love's a gift, Hayley, to be taken and received freely. ~ Nora Roberts

The afternoon sun was bright above the cloud, lending to the scene a silvery glow that leached the sea of colour and picked out points of white light in the sand. The very raindrops seemed to shimmer in the air; the wind, blowing chill from the ocean, carried with it a pleasant, rusty smell. All this did much to dispel Devlin's torpor, and in very little time at all he was red-cheeked and smiling, his white brimmed hat clamped tight to his head with the palm of his hand. He decided to make the most of his perambulation, and return to Hokitika via the high terrace of Seaview: the site of the future Hokitika Gaol, and Devlin's own future residence. ~ Eleanor Catton

You wish to rule the Dreaming City; you must excel in all its ways. Play with me, a single game of Lo Shen. If you best me, I will go into seclusion as you ask, and you will ascend to the Tower without the slightest argument, and without battle. No one will contest you, and you will rule as well as you are able. If you lose, however, you must disband your army, and take the vows of one of our Towers, enter it as a novice, and pledge yourself to our City for the rest of your days. In the Anointed City, this is the way disputes are settled. If you would rule us, you must behave as one of us. Show me that you are the rightful Papess. Show me that you exceed us in all things."
Ragnhild seemed to laugh, but no sound issued from her rosy mouth. Her eyes glittered like snowflakes catching the sun. "You cannot be serious. A single game to decide five hundred years of history?"
"Were it not that once my predecessor harmed you, I would simply kill you where you stand. ~ Catherynne M Valente

Just a touch of eyeliner and red lips is glamorous. ~ Monica Bellucci

We have been at war almost constantly since the last century. And it has not helped our institutions. Congress no longer represents the people. The courts do not practice justice any more. The armies never stop playing at being the policemen of the world and of oil. ~ Gore Vidal

Georges Sorel, to whom fascism is so much indebted, wrote at the beginning of our century that all great movements are compelled by 'myths.' A myth is the strongest belief held by the group, and its adherents feel themselves to be an army of truth fighting an army of evil. Some years earlier, in 1895, the French psychologist Gustav Le Bon had written of the 'conservatism of crowds' which cling tenaciously to traditional ideas. Hitler took the basic nationalism of the German tradition and the longing for stable personal relationships of olden times, and built upon them as the strongest belief of the group. In the diffusion of the 'myth' Hitler fulfilled what Le Bon had forecast: that 'magical powers' were needed to control the crowd. The Fuhrer himself wrote of the 'magic influence' of mass suggestion and the liturgical aspects of his movement, and its success as a mass religion bore out the truth of this view. ~ George L. Mosse