"One of these types of executives is represented by people who rendered certain services in the past... These are the people who do not consider it their duty to fulfill the decisions of the Party and of the Government, and who thus destroy the foundations of Party and state discipline... They Presume that the Soviet Government will not have the courage to touch them, because of their past services. These over-conceited aristocrats think that they are irreplaceable... What is to be done with executives of this kind? They must unhesitatingly be removed from their leading posts, irrespective of past services."
Joseph Stalin (January 1934)
The Frustrated CFO's commentary:
Usually all my posts are accompanied by pictures, but not this one - I don't put up photos of mass murderers. Yet, I think that this quote tragically confirms my observation that entities, organizations, and systems can survive even after the most valuable, irreplaceable individuals are removed. In this speech, delivered during the 17th Congress of the Bolsheviks Party, Stalin has laid the grounds for the Great Purge that was about to exterminate millions of the best and the brightest Russian citizens - political, economic, scientific, military, industrial, and cultural elite. In fact, the eliminations started with the members of the said Congress, nicknamed by historians the Congress of the Condemned because two thirds of the people present during the oration were executed within the next three years. Without them and without the continuously murdered and imprisoned in camps workers, agrarians, engineers, doctors, scientists, poets, writers, musicians, etc. the country was getting darker, poorer, more corrupt, and less educated. But it's still there, on the map. Even after the break up of the Soviet Union it's still the largest damn country in the world.