Russia's Curse of Bad Leaders - Putin, the Latest Chapter

Some time back I noted that I had read the book "Red Fortress - History and Illusion in the Kremlin," which had been given to me as a Christmas gift.  The book traced the history of the Kremlin and by extension the history of Russia from the founding of the Muscovy state through the near present.  The take away from the book: (i) much of Russia's "curse" has been bad leaders who has squandered Russia's future and acted to the detriment of the Russian people, (ii) too often, Russians have found themselves struggling to over come the backwardness and societal regression arising from brutal regimes and squandered opportunities, and (iii) Russia continues to have a love-hate relationship with western Europe.  Fast forward to the present day and a piece in Time looks at why modern day Russians are allowing their future to be harmed by Russia's latest bad ruker, Vladimir Putin.  Here are article highlights:

But in all of it there was an undercurrent of aggrievement; a sense of having to restart after seven decades of the Soviet State, having to retrace steps back to the path the rest of the world had been on—and then struggle to catch up; a feeling that the chance for Russia to remake itself had been hampered by the hegemony of the West; a knowledge that the county was less than it could be, should be, that their individual lives were lessened too; or maybe just a knowledge—especially among the populace in poorer towns and villages outside of Moscow—that what wealth and success has come to the county has come only to a very few.

That’s a feeling a great number of Americans can relate to: not only the frustration with growing inequality, but the sense that our country is also somehow becoming smaller than it should be. Here, when our sense of self is threatened, we turn to historical mythology that buttresses our belief in who we are: The American Dream, our forefathers wrestling with what that would be, the presidents who, through our beloved democracy, shaped how we understand it now—FDR, JFK, Reagan. We look for the next in that mold.

But Russians don’t have that history. Theirs is one in which revolutionary uprisings led to instability before being channeled by a system of control; one in which democracy is associated with a time of devastating economic collapse. We all know the long history of Russian strongmen—from Ivan the Terrible to Joseph Stalin—but can you imagine having that history as our own, having those leaders to look back on? Can you imagine our own country collapsed, our own inequality increased, our own dreams squeezed? Maybe you can, all too well. Now imagine that we had a leader who not only gave us hope, promised us change, but delivered.

But what has Putin really delivered?  Unfettered political and economic corruption; staggering wealth disparities that rival or exceed those of Imperial Russia; a growing status as a international pariah; a return to a dictatorship; media censorship and  the arrest of political opponents of trumped up charges.  The list goes on and on.  Posturings of military strength and cow towing to the Orthodox Church which has throughout its history backed autocrats does not equal delivering on changes.  Rather, it is merely a repackaging of the worse aspects of Russia's past.  The ultimate irony?  Had the 1917 Bolshevik revolution never occurred and trends under the last phase of the Romanov dynasty continued, Russia might well have been wealthier and more powerful and more cultural prominent than it is today.  Bad leaders being replaced by those even worse is not delivering on promises of change.

Hope needs to be based on substance, not just a controlled media and endless propaganda.  In some ways nothing has changed in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union.