Getting Out of the Crisis

Abstract

The present author has always wondered why the Soviet and post-Soviet Russian leadership has included no wise and authoritative figure equivalent to China's Deng Xiaoping. Why have the democratization and liberalization of our national socioeconomic life not fulfilled our expectations? Why has the new Russian regime not managed to turn its speculations about the country's former greatness into an understanding of its sources and its nature? Why has it done hardly anything to restore that greatness on a new, sounder, and more reliable foundation? Why has the populace again become marginal to the implementation of the regime's plans? We might even recall how the "cruel, harsh" generals who ruled Korea and Taiwan for so long made development their top priority and did all they could to make their countries equals of the world's leading states. The Chinese Communist Party later set itself a similar goal and has made some impressive achievements. The questions are largely rhetorical, but still, why?