“One of Ivan the Terrible's mistakes was to overlook the five great feudal families. If he had annihilated those five families, there would definitely have been no Time of Troubles. But Ivan the Terrible would execute someone and then spend a long time repenting and praying. God got in his way in this matter. He ought to have been still more decisive!”

Moskovskie novosti, no. 32, 7 August 1988
Contemporary witnesses

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Joseph Stalin95

General secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union 1879–1953

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