Metaphorically, Petrunkevich witnessed first-hand many of the same behaviors and characteristics demonstrated in the spider and wasp that he saw in the communist leaders of his country. Perhaps he saw similarities in the calculated, and precise ways in which the wasp navigated slowly and cautiously around the body of the spider as to trick him “The molestation is so great and so persistent that the tarantula often... (170) that he also witnessed how easily the weak and poor people of Russia could be manipulated in a like manner, by Joseph Stalin. The first comparison or rather bold statement that caught my attention was when Petrunkevich wrote “The hunter cannot exist without the hunted; if the latter should perish from the earth…” (168).
