(Image: Private Media)

Two men, two centuries and two very similar ways of thinking — Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Putin are alike in both thought and phrase. There is no greater demonstration of this than when trying to determine which leader uttered which of the following lines:

  1. You must obey the law, always, not only when they grab you by your special place.
  2. Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army can reach.
  3. The task of the government is not only to pour honey into a cup, but sometimes to give bitter medicine.
  4. Those who fight corruption should be clean themselves.
  5. If the opposition disarms, well and good. If it refuses to disarm, we shall disarm it ourselves.
  6. Sometimes it is necessary to be lonely in order to prove that you are right.
  7. Everybody has a right to be stupid, but some people abuse the privilege.
  8. Education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.
  9. The leaders come and go, but the people remain. Only the people are immortal.
  10. There are both things in international law: the principle of territorial integrity and right to self-determination.
  11. Words are one thing — deeds something entirely different. Fine words are a mask to cover shady deeds. A sincere diplomat is like dry water or wooden iron.
  12. Those who are weak will get unambiguous advice from foreign visitors which way to go and what policy course to pursue.
  13. It is not heroes that make history, but history that makes heroes.
  14. When you chop wood, splinters fly.
  15. This war is not as in the past: whoever occupies a territory also imposes his own social system.
  16. The United States has overstepped its borders in all spheres — economic, political and humanitarian — and has imposed itself on other states.
  17. The strengthening of our statehood is, at times, deliberately interpreted as authoritarianism.

Answers: 1. Putin 2. Stalin 3. Putin 4. Putin 5. Stalin 6. Putin 7. Stalin 8. Stalin 9. Stalin 10. Putin 11. Stalin 12. Putin 13. Stalin 14. Stalin 15. Stalin 16. Putin 17. Putin