Free Republic

How a Great Power Falls Apart Decline Is Invisible From the Inside By Charles King June 30, 2020 https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russia-fsu/2020-06-30/how-great-power-falls-apart On November 11, 1980, a car filled with writers was making its way along a rain-slick highway to a conference in Madrid. The subject of the meeting was the human rights movement in the Soviet Union, and in the vehicle were some of the movement’s long-suffering activists: Vladimir Borisov and Viktor Fainberg, both of whom had endured horrific abuse in a Leningrad psychiatric hospital; the Tatar artist Gyuzel Makudinova, who had spent years in internal exile in Siberia; and her husband,...