Putin inherited a ransacked and bewildered country, with a poor and demoralized people. And he started to do what was possible -- a slow and gradual restoration. These efforts were not noticed, nor appreciated, immediately. In any case, one is hard pressed to find examples in history when steps by one country to restore its strength were met favorably by other governments.Prominent supporter of Vladimir Putin dies. A bit of a naughty way to put it, I know. But Solzhenitsyn suffered incredibly and in the end he got a lot of what he wanted: the end of Communism and the restoration of authoritarianism on traditional patriotic grounds. He won on his final throw, with anticommunist liberals his useful idiots.
It's part of the Chinese project to effect a similar wider national reconciliation without going through the muscial chairs of regime change. Faster, higher, stronger!
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