> Deng hasn’t cleared up any mess - he has made progress by
> transforming China into the world’s garbage dump.
I disagree. Mixed bag, of course, but this points to the main theme:
The new problems thus created will require new solutions, of course. That is brewing.
> 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'm not trying to be dismissive, but what really matters here is if the Russians have been impressed by his performance. Putin is no Lenin, by no stretch of the imagination. This is all relative to circumstances, to what was needed and viable.
> 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).
Right. I don't think anybody who's been discussing the matter on this thread would disagree with you. It's the role of individuals in the big current of history that we're talking about. And history is made by people, etc. -- not individuals in isolation. And you just reminded me of Gandhi and Nehru, whom we slighted and also made a big historical splash.