Applause, applause
I read Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago in 1975. He related an incident that has stuck with me.
Stalin had given a speech to a large group of Communist Party high-muckety-mucks. At the end of the speech, everyone naturally stood and applauded wildly in praise of Stalin.
And the applause went on for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes …
A somber realization swept slowly, then faster, through the crowd: Who would be the first to stop applauding?