Word: mikhail
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Since 1948, all of the world champions have been Russians-from Mikhail Botvinnik (three times) to Boris Spassky. Their personalities, temperaments and styles of play reflect not only East-West cultural differences, but also the peculiar status of chess in Communist countries. While chess is merely a game for the Russian masses, it is a profession or at least a second profession for the Soviet chess masters, who may also be engineers or physicists. Both teaching and play are state-supported, and grand masters get good pay and high honors. So when a grand master competes outside Russia...
...tente would lead to political relaxation in the Communist countries. The effect so far has been the opposite. Communist leaders throughout the bloc are seeking to immunize their people from the possibly liberalizing contamination that could result from closer economic and cultural contact with the West. Soviet Politburo Member Mikhail Suslov has warned that détente will actually mean a sharpening of the political tensions between the Communist and capitalist countries. "In the ideological field," Suslov declared, "there is not and cannot be any peaceful coexistence...
...make a move. During a match with World Champion Emanuel Lasker (1894-1921), Steinitz slurped a glass of lemonade so noisily that Lasker moved to a separate table. Some of Lasker's victims claimed in turn that the champion stunned them with his foul-smelling cigars. World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik( 1948-57,1958-60, 1961-63) used to train for a match by having an aide blow smoke in his eyes. Matched against the U.S.S.R.'s Mikhail Tal, a former world champion (1960-61) who has been accused of trying to hypnotize rivals with his laserlike gaze, U.S. Grand Master...
...with Mariner 9. The Russian ship landed safely and even began sending signals. But the intense dust storm that was buffeting the planet at the time completely obscured the view. ("If you know, for example, what London fog is like, then you have an idea what was there," explained Mikhail Marov, head of the Soviet Mars program.) After sending signals for only 20 seconds, the Russian vehicle apparently tumbled over in the high winds (perhaps as strong as 300 m.p.h.), leaving its antenna pointing in the wrong direction for any further transmissions...
Medvedev quotes from a private family archive an eyewitness account of how Stalin personally led the interrogation and humiliation of his purged Ukrainian party chief, Stanislav Kosior. There is also an authoritative description of the death of Stalin's prewar Aviation Minister, Mikhail Kaganovich, a Jew whom Stalin accused of collaborating with the Nazis. The man was summoned to the office of Anastas Mikoyan, one of Stalin's most durable aides and later Foreign Minister and President of the U.S.S.R., now retired and writing his memoirs. When Kaganovich was confronted with the false evidence against him, he asked...