Simon Sebag-Montefiore: Svetlana Stalina, who died last week, always said that Stalin, her father, “broke my life”. Her troubled life illustrates how power coarsens, corrupts and corrodes family itself. Even in democracies, the relentless demands of power are wearying, then coarsening then corrupting. In the long reigns of despots, the more absolute, the more corrosive. … Continue reading Enduring lessons of Stalin’s little sparrow