Immense cruelty was the order of the day for much of the 20th century, especially in parts of Europe and the East through fascism and communism. Among the many dictators known throughout that bloody century, none are more notable, nor bloody, than Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong.
Photographic postcard of Anna Pavlova, prima ballerina of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres, circa 1905, from the photography studio of the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre. St. Petersburg, Russian Empire. (Public Domain)
In the new book “The Dancer and the Devil: Stalin, Pavlova, and the Road to the Great Pandemic,” authors John E. O’Neill and Sarah C. Wynne cover a century of wickedness in the then-USSR and now-Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The focus, though, is not on the famines or the mass exterminations and imprisonments. The focus is on the use of poisons on political enemies, or perceived potential enemies.
…