[Publius]

Back in the Seventies, Alexander Solzhenitsyn spoke at Harvard and stated that if Russia wanted to be a positive force in the world, it had to have an organizing principle. Marxist Leninism was a failure and destined for the ash heap of history, so that was out. As he saw it, the only choice was a return to the Russian Orthodox faith. He also doubted that democracy would work in Russia because it was not a part of Russian cultural or political history.

At the time of the speech, Nixon asked Kissinger what it meant.

"It is a very conservative statement," answered Henry.

"More conservative than Barry Goldwater?" asked Nixon, naming his lodestar for conservatism.

"More conservative than the czars," said Kissinger.

Putin was part of a Russian nationalist movement within the KGB that took Solzhenitsyn to heart. Since achieving power, he made Solzhenitsyn required reading for high school students. He took a Russian Orthodox seminary than had been turned into government buildings by Stalin and returned it to the church. He took a basilica that Stalin had turned into a public swimming pool and rebuilt it to its original specifications at government expense.

Putin understands that Russian Orthodoxy is the only hope for holding ethnic Russia together because if it doesn't, he will be presiding over a majority Muslim nation in the not too distant future.

[The Westerner]

Nice way to make the old bandit come up smelling like a rose. He’s well aware of the deeply mystical Russian culture. He’s no dummy.

[Mariner]

Democracy is not for everybody.

Or every nation.

There are merits to the concept of Christian Monarchy. It’s the system by which Western Civilization was forged and flourished.

Read the history of the Holy Roman Empire of the Germanic Peoples. It flourished 1,000 years under such a system.