Robert Conquest, Cold War scholar (on our side) and poet, died on Monday at the fine age of 98.  Roger Kimball has a graceful tribute at The New Criterion website.  There is a formal newspaper obituary at the Daily Telegraph site.

Although he was a serious poet who won prizes for his verse, Conquest was also a gifted practitioner of the limerick.  As usual with this form, the results are mostly not suitable for a family website, but Roger Kimball's tribute includes this one, which neatly sums up the U.S.S.R. from 1917 to 1953.

There was a great Marxist called Lenin

Who did two or three million men in

That’s a lot to have done in

But where he did one in,

That grand Marxist Stalin did ten in.