Boris Pasternak, quoted in Olga Ivinskaya, A Captive of Time; My Years with Pasternak, Doubleday, 1978. (p. 80).
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If, in a bad dream, we had seen all of the horrors in store for us after the war, we should have been sorry not to see Stalin go down together with Hitler: an end to the war in favour of our allies, civilized countries with democratic traditions, would have meant a hundred times less suffering for our people than that which Stalin again inflicted on it after his victory.
— Boris Pasternak on Joseph Stalin
What It Means
This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "If, in a bad dream, we had seen all of the horrors in store for us after the war, we should have been sorry not to see Stalin go down together with Hitler: an end to the war in favour of our allies, civilized countries with democratic traditions, would have meant a hundred times less suffering for our people than that which Stalin again inflicted on it after his victory." in the context of "Boris Pasternak, quoted in Olga Ivinskaya, A Captive of Time; My Years with Pasternak, Doubleday, 1978. (p. 80)." to mean that wisdom is timeless.
Source: Wikiquote: "Joseph Stalin" (Quotes about Joseph Stalin: Alphabetized by author )
The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
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About Boris Pasternak
Boris Leonidovich Pasternak Борис Леонидович Пастернак (10 February 1890 – 30 May 1960) was a Russian poet and writer famous for his 1957 novel Doctor Zhivago. His first book of poems, My Sister, Life (1917), is one of the most influential collections ever published in the Russian language. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958, an event which enraged the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which forced him to decline the prize, though his descendants were later to accept it in his name in 1988.
About Boris Pasternak
Boris Leonidovich Pasternak Борис Леонидович Пастернак (10 February 1890 – 30 May 1960) was a Russian poet and writer famous for his 1957 novel Doctor Zhivago. His first book of poems, My Sister, Life (1917), is one of the most influential collections ever published in the Russian language. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958, an event which enraged the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which forced him to decline the prize, though his descendants were later to accept it in his name in 1988.
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