My dear Julio, if you think “mutatis mutandis” (which I had to fight just now with my spellchecker to successfully prevent auto-correction) and “in situ” are plain prose, I fear you have spent way too much time in academia :-). I joke, but…
> In historical terms, Gorbachev is a big *loser*. Granted, as a
> person, he seems like a nice and reasonable human being. May God
> bless his soul. And history gave him a very bad hand. But *that* is
> exactly what defines great leadership! By definition, great leaders
> inherit messes. If they didn't -- and if they didn't turn things
> around -- then they would not be great. Actually, great leaders
> ascend to power *because* the status quo fails to deliver, *because*
> there are big messes to clean up. Great leaders are eager to clean
> big messes.
By this measure, Steve Jobs might be the only great leader the world has seen, ever. No? Unless you believe the rot about that great racist asshole, Winston Churchill. Deng hasn’t cleared up any mess - he has made progress by transforming China into the world’s garbage dump. Even Putin’s strongman act is to me unimpressive even if it was necessary and he was the right man for it. I am not trying to be argumentative… I just don’t see anyone in history pulling off a turnaround on his own steam or fuelled by his vision, strength, decision-making, etc (take WW2, which at least the way it was taught to me in school, was won by the sacrifice of a few million Russian soldiers). Instead you see - to borrow the title of a recent book about Mahatma Gandhi - “sublime failures” (or “big losers” to use your term). Fidel Castro, struggling to keep Cuba afloat after the end of USSR patronage. Hugo Chavéz swinging wildly between anti-imperialism and crazy talk about Assad and Gaddafi. Martin Luther King the fulfilment of whose dreams is the election of Obama to presidency even as the fate of black people as an underclass seems sealed (worse in fact: the nominal claims/protections of colour-blindness in hiring and such providing ground for talk of “individual responsibility” from their own man in the face of persistent inequalities). Indira Gandhi? Yasser Arafat? Nasser? Perhaps Ataturk?
> Contrast with Putin and Medvedev who, until now, are highly regarded
> by the common person in Russia. I regarded their leading the
> reconstruction of the Russia's economy, with all its warts, as a
> significant accomplishment.
Recall that Bush Jr was wildly popular, pulling in approval ratings around 70%, in the months and years following 9/11. What is the nature of Putin’s reconstruction of Russia that is admirable? That’s not a sarcastic or rhetorical question. He turned out to be a bigger strongman than the oligarchs and IMF handlers, and for that perhaps we owe him some gratitude and credit. The formula itself, especially when funded by quick growth in wealth from natural resources, seems to be a fairly obvious one. I do agree that a turnaround was achieved and that is a significant accomplishment. It no doubt improved living conditions for Russians. Does that mean much for the 20th century world at large? I am not sure.
—ravi