In his chilling account of the Romanov dynasty, the British historian Simon Sebag Montefiore quoted Pyotr Stolypin, who was interior minister for Nicholas II, the last of the czars: “In Russia, nothing is more dangerous than the appearance of weakness.”
Montefiore explained that during the 300-plus years of Romanov rule, power had been an instrument not simply of governing but of survival, too. He cited the aphorism of the French writer Madame de Stael: “In Russia, the government is autocracy tempered by strangulation.”
