https://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2009/06/20/the-miracle-men/feed/PJ Media is a leading news site covering culture, politics, faith, homeland security, and more. Our reporters and columnists provide original, in-depth analysis from a variety of perspectives.en-usThu, 11 Jun 2026 00:23:34 -0400<![CDATA[Robert Conquest&#8217;s landmark book, The Great Terror, is described by the publisher as being a &#8220;portrayal of the death of millions in Stalin&#8217;s peacetime consolidation of power&#8221;. But anyone who reads it will know that it is more than that. The Great Terror is one of the finest portraits of the soul of the Soviet Communist Party ever written. In a sense, it is the nonfiction counterpart of George Orwell&#8217;s 1984. Neither work is concerned with simply ennumerating the unfathomable number of murders, tortures, deportations and &#8220;falsifications&#8221; of a phenomenon which Conquest characterized as consisting of brute physical violence on the one hand paired to a matchless Western cover-up on the other. What both the Terror and 1984 really aspire to do is get behind the numbers and at the idea of the Terror; why it occurred and more importantly, how it could possibly have been psychologically accepted.]]>Sat, 20 Jun 2009 02:48:00 -0400<![CDATA[Richard Fernandez]]>https://pjmedia.com/richard-fernandez/2009/06/20/the-miracle-men-n188575