But it’s very striking that at the end of that section I had with her [Laurie Tisch], she said: At the end of the day, it’s hard to convince someone like me to give up power.
So I said: Then how do you change this kind of thing? How could this kind of thing ever change?
And her words were: “Revolution, maybe.”
The Stakhanovite movement (стаха́новское движе́ние) was a mass cultural movement of workers which originated in the Soviet Union, and encouraged socialist emulation and rationalization of workplace processes. The Stakhanovites (стаха́новцы) modeled themselves after Alexei Stakhanov and took pride in their ability to produce more than was required by working harder and more efficiently, thus contributing to the common good and strengthening the socialist state. The movement began in the coal industry but later spread to many other industries in the Soviet Union. Initially popular, it eventually encountered resistance as the increased productivity led to increased demands on workers.
The first known use of lily-livered was in 1605. From the medieval belief that the liver was the seat of courage, and the pale color of the lily flower. A person who had no blood in their liver would have no courage and would thus be a coward. Equivalent to lily + livered.
lily-livered apparently means cowardly and just comes from the color of lilys being pale and thus not courageous.
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