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Once Putin is dead, what happens next?
Despite hoping that Putin will die soon (today has my preference), the real question what will happen afterward involves a Russia that does not have a good track record of positive change. It is a nation that likes to concentrate powers in a way that is reminiscent of medieval times. We can ask when Russia is going to be a true European nation (in the most positive sense of what European means). Yet the answer shows us gloomy weather with not much blue sky in it.
Looking throughout Russia’s modern history, Gorbachev is the one leader who was willing to fall on his own sword of power and in that way helped spread power toward others. Yeltsin did not fall on any sword and instead he made powers recover (behind the scenes) from Gorbachev’s ‘un-Russian’ move. Next, Putin turned out to be nothing but a person in power concentrating powers to the max, just like Russian leaders have done throughout Russian history.
Only Gorbachev made a ‘European’ move of spreading power downward to the lower ranks. All other Russian leaders made the more common Russian move of concentrating power to its max.
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This article is not a political in-depth exposé but a structural view about Russian power from a rather high level.
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