Martin Amis. Photograph: Martin Lawrence/Daily Mail/Shutterstock

One of the real truths of the 21st century, and earlier, is that history is speeding up. We’re all on a sort of rollercoaster now. There are existential threats that weren’t fully acknowledged not so long ago. We are sort of hurtling forward. It’s more of a task to ask people to slow down.

—Martin Amis

From the testimony of former hostages interviewed by the Russian media, it seems virtually certain that the terrorists did have ample time to destroy many of the hostages before they themselves had been overcome by the gas or shot by the attacking special forces. Why did they not do so? As we have seen, most of the explosives in the building were „fakes“ or very weak bombs presenting a danger principally to the women terrorists wearing them. Even without detonating the bombs, however, the terrorists carried real automatic weapons and could easily have raked the hostages with automatic-weapon fire. They clearly chose, however, to let the hostages live. Even an Interior Ministry general who had been identified by the terrorists and had been separated from the other hostages was not killed (though his daughter died from the effects of the gas). Theater producer Vasilev has recalled: „When the shooting began, they [the terrorists] told us to lean forward in the theater seats and cover our heads behind the seats.“

—John B. Dunlop, The 2002 Dubrovka and 2004 Beslan Hostage Crises, (Stuttgart: ibidem, 2006), 148.

Yeltsin’s main dilemma throughout his entire administration was just how far he was willing to violate democracy in order to save it. In fall 1993, the Supreme Soviet—the parliament, which was still full of ex-Soviet apparatchiks—had blocked his reforms and called on federal regions to rebel. Yeltsin disbanded the legislature and sent tanks to smoke out the deputies who barricaded themselves inside; 140 died in the melee. It was a tough choice, but the alternative had seemed worse: total economic collapse and political implosion.

The Communists did not quit. As Yeltsin’s presidential term continued, he was opposed once again by a newly elected hostile parliament, the Duma, where the tone was set by Communists as well as the neo-fascist party of Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who openly advocated an authoritarian model of government.

—Alexander Goldfarb, Death of a Dissident, (New York: Free Press, 2007), 33.