> Especially when there's a lot of prior baggage of being ruled by a single person, be it a tzar or a head of Politburo.
This describes Hungary, Czech Republic, Romania and Poland, all former Soviet bloc countries. They've all had varying levels of success transitioning from communism to democracy and from a planned economy to market.
So it can happen. Could it have happened for Russia? Who knows? Based on the above, I lean towards yes.
> This describes Hungary, Czech Republic, Romania and Poland, all former Soviet bloc countries. They've all had varying levels of success transitioning from communism to democracy and from a planned economy to market.
Yes, but neither the Baltics nor Warsaw Pact countries want anything to do with communism in the first place. It was forced onto them. So transitioning back to a democracy and market economy was far more straightforward.
It's interesting to think about nations as individual people with both innate and learned characteristics. The latter can override the former in some cases, but it usually takes a lot of effort and/or extreme circumstances.
A nation's innate characteristics wouldn't be gene based as would an individual though. It would stem from the circumstances of its beginning and its history that forms the ethos of a people and is passed down from generation to generation. In that way, it is gene like.
This describes Hungary, Czech Republic, Romania and Poland, all former Soviet bloc countries. They've all had varying levels of success transitioning from communism to democracy and from a planned economy to market.
So it can happen. Could it have happened for Russia? Who knows? Based on the above, I lean towards yes.