Dictator Joseph Stalin.           Vladimir Putin, also egocentric and dictatorial.
 Washington Post by Will Englund (excerpts):  Smolensk, Russia - As opposition leaders wait to see how Russian authorities intend to handle continuing political protests in Moscow, a criminal case here, 250 miles to the west, suggests that tough measures are part of the equation.  The wife of a radical organizer was sentenced late last month to 10 years in prison for the alleged possession of half an ounce of heroin, a move that her supporters say is aimed at intimidating and dividing the Kremlin's political foes.  The conviction and harsh sentence for Taisia Osipova follow a trial that was marked by dubious testimony and the exclusion of exculpatory evidence.  She and her allies argue that her arrest was part of an attempt to target her husband for his political activity and now a key prosecution witness has come forward to corroborate that charge.  Osipova is an unlikely heroine.  A 26-year-old diabetic without much education, she generously salts her conversations with profanity and, as a member of the fringe Bolshevik National Party, once walked up to the governor of Smolensk region and struck him in the face with a bouquet of carnations.  She gave up on such activism when her daughter was born six years ago and she's not part of the big city middle class cohort that has turned out recently for demonstrations.  Yet some of the young stars of the new political movement - as well as the members of a guerrilla art collaborative and a famous rock singer - have rallied to her side.  Far from keeping their distance from her, they are demanding her release.  "She's in jail as a hostage," said Zoya Svetova, who writes about crime and civil rights for the crusading journal New Times in Moscow.  "This is a political prosecution."  "This is typical of a system that also relies on arresting businessmen to force them to pay bribes, and an example of the official lawlessness that is one of the chief complaints of the political opposition."  "People can't understand such cruel, unfounded treatment," said Osipova's attorney, Natalia Shaposhnikova, "and now everybody thinks - it could happen to me."  Svetlana Sidorkina, a human right's lawyer in Moscow who also worked on Osipova's case, thinks the intimidation can be effective.  "People here remember 1937, they can be scared," she said, referring to the worst year of Joseph Stalin's purges.  

Commentary:  1937 wasn't all that long ago.  Under the dictatorship of Joseph Stalin, tens of millions of ordinary individuals were executed or imprisoned in labor camps that were little more than death camps, akin to those of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, not that long ago either.  Genocide and exterminations go on all over the world in Socialist, Communist and dictatorial countries.  Americans think, "Ours is much too great a nation for that to ever happen here!"  Well, that's what you think.  What elitists and those running this government know all too well is that the earth is overpopulated and resources are not going to meet the continuing needs of the population in the future.  They have a plan.  The only thing I can suggest is that if you aren't saved, get right with God, and get out of debt and keep a low profile.  With awareness of the egregious medical experiments that have already been conducted right here in the US and by medical personnel in other countries, as well as the hideous experiments inflicted on the Jews in the Nazi death camps, we know to keep our firearms at hand, and when push comes to shove, do not let them go and do not let go of your Constitutional rights!  Before the invasion of Israel by the Romans, Jesus said to His disciples, "He who has a purse (to carry money), let him take it and likewise his scrip, and he who has no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one" Luke 22:36.  Jesus knew of the impending invasion and the mayhem that would follow.  The apostles became martyrs by choice, in that Jesus instructed them to defend themselves, but they rather chose to die as their Lord.  It's not that easy for some, especially when there are children involved.  Would you want to see your child tortured and slaughtered, such as they were in the Nazi death camps?  There will be a battle right here in America for our Constitutional rights.  We don't know whether it will begin before or after the rapture of God's people, but one thing is certain, history proves that man and dictators cannot be trusted.  I believe that the Lord has revealed to me, as well as other, that Vladimir Putin will take office and he will move Russian forces, with Middle Eastern allies, against Israel, commencing World War III.