Russian scorn for liberal democracy has a long history, and a certain kind of Russian disdain for the West is nothing new. As far back as 1920, Lenin declared that parliaments were “historically obsolete” and predicted that it was just a matter of time before they disappeared. In 1956, the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev famously said that “history is on our side.” The Soviet Union was winning, he said, and the West was dying: “We will bury you.”
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Anne Applebaum: Putin’s attack on Western values was familiar. The American reaction was not
(LtoR) Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Chinese President Xi Jinping, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his wife Akie and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman are pictured as they pose for a group photo before a cultural event at the Osaka Geihinkan in Osaka Castle Park during the G20 Summit in Osaka on June 28, 2019.
