Communism
Beautiful and damned
For centuries hailed as the home of poetry, music and liberalism, Weimar was ruthlessly exploited by the Nazis and later served as a showcase for communism, says Philip Hensher
How to survive totalitarianism
When this extraordinary book was about to come out in French four years ago its author was told by his…
Sacred hunger
Atheists are blind to a fundamental human need
Lest we forget
Twenty-five years ago, Rowena Xiaoqing He, then a schoolgirl, was participating in the Tiananmen-supporting demonstrations in Canton. Far from the…
Old school ties
Robert Gore-Langton talks to Julian Mitchell about the painful roots of his hit play Another Country
Reds under the beds
Leon Trotsky’s grandson, Esteban Volkov, is a retired chemist in his early eighties. I met him not long ago in…
Hiding in plain sight
A building bearing testimony to the power of eternal Russia; a timeless symbol of the Russian state; a monument to…
Neither saint nor sage
The inventor of ‘doublethink’ was consistently inconsistent in his own political views, says A.N. Wilson. And no fun at all
‘You will pay’
Memories of being Ralph Miliband’s research assistant
No use crying over spilt blood
Simon Sebag Montefiore’s One Night in Winter begins in the hours immediately following the solemn victory parade that marked the…
Shady groves of academe
The scene is the common room of All Souls College, Oxford, in the first week of March 1963. It is…
Diary
Hay-making was easy this year, and over in good time for a holiday. I am opposed to holidays, having worked…
