136 Quotes by Masha Gessen

Poverty and scarcity are actually very good for totalitarian societies. They maintain that sense of mobilization that's essential for totalitarian societies.

My hypothesis is that for people who are both trained and inclined to think in rigorously logical ways, it is particularly difficult to adapt to the Soviet system of doublethink.

I think that Russia was like a lot of other countries, a lot of empires, in being a tyranny up until the early 20th century. Then Russia had something that no other country has had, which is the longest totalitarian experiment in history.

To exercise ignorance, racist prejudice, a love of power and total disregard for factual accuracy, one has to inhabit a world where everything can mean anything and nothing is certain.

Of course, Oliver Stone is not Donald Trump. But he shares with him a certain way of seeing the world and being in the world - and the luxury of persisting in this way of being, and even making a spectacle of it.

Incomprehensible messaging is a very important part of Russian propaganda.

You know, I think that a conversation about what Facebook is - is it a public resource, even though it's a privately owned corporation? Is it a media company? It is certainly not just a platform, as Facebook has claimed repeatedly. I think that is a really important question.

Any country is either becoming more democratic or less democratic. I think the United States hasn't tended to its journey toward democracy in a long time.

I would much rather engage people in a conversation about deregulation and reversals of women's rights and civil rights and LGBT rights than conversations about Russian interference.