All early accounts agree that one of Stalin’s characteristics was ‘laziness’ or ‘indolence’ - which Bukharin impressed on Trotsky as Stalin’s ‘most striking quality’.⁴² Trotsky remarked that Stalin ‘never did any serious work’ but was always ‘busy with his intrigues’. Another way of putting this is that Stalin paid the necessary attention to the detail of political manœuvre.

Three factors complicate this push by local governments to 'metropolise'.

Vegetarianism, he said, is an idea “that has three things going for it all at once—economics, health and compassion.”

It was a cop-out to say he couldn't sign the petition because he sprained his wrist.