Look no further than the recent flare up between the NBA and China for a snapshot of Chinese politics today. After Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey tweeted an image with the message “fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong,” Chinese companies enacted a media boycott of the NBA and pulled sponsorships in a market worth $4 billion a year for the league. U.S. politicians blasted the moves – and the NBA’s initial hesitant response.

Historian Tom Holland argues both sides of the culture wars share similar theological assumptions—including the dignity of women, which he traces to St. Paul.

October is the month for bringing in the harvest and consolidating power. According to his biography on the Gorbachev Foundation website, the last leader of the Soviet Union is proud of his ability to detect a fault in a combine harvester just by the sound of it. His acumen with agricultural machinery—learned from his father—helped the younger Gorbachev become the youngest winner of the Order of the Red Banner of Labor award for his part in bringing in the bumper crop of 1949 at the age of just seventeen. The award helped secure him a place at the Moscow State University, where he studied law.

Former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul believes President Vladimir Putin is fighting against the tide of history and that Russian society will not “tolerate disenfranchisement and oppression forever.”