Soviet leaders, when faced with opposition to callous policies, were fond of saying omelettes aren’t made without breaking eggs. Alexander Tvardovsky, editor of Novy Mir, the reformist journal that lit a fuse under the system by publishing Solzhenitsyn’s “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” in 1962, suggested that in view of the state of the Soviet economy they should say instead: “Babies aren’t made by kisses.”
