El Feet doesn't realize that Putout Putin's basic pitch these days is Hitler without a mustache, less hair, and much less military experience. In fact, it's possibly news to El Feet that the Nazis and Russians were buddies back in the day, as both ran roughshod across Europe, terrorizing their neighbors, slaughtering or enslaving millions.
It took more than one generation after WW2 for a lot of people not to start getting twitchy about putting weapons in the hands of German and Japanese forces, let alone for those countries to be allowed to even have militaries. In each case, Germany and Japan, there came a time of reckoning for the horrors of the national past. Not total reckonings, not perfect, but reckonings of a sort. People were required to account for their behavior. There was public awareness. There were consequences.
Not so in Russia. Yes, Stalin died, Beria was shot, Khrushchev gave the "Secret Speech," restrictions loosened somewhat, but there really was no exposure, no real accounting. Hence, no reckoning. Nothing to see here, move on.
So the behavioral and character flaws that allowed for the creation of a Russian-Nazi alliance back then also permit the enshrinement into the national system of those very same flaws.
Putin yammers incessantly about transforming Russia. Well, he already has. Just not in the way he had in mind.
In the spirit of George Santayana, those who cannot reckon with their past are held prisoner by it.
