Updated 2 years ago
Geography. Russians are slav(e)s to their ancestors with all that Viking testosterone DNA, who bit off far more than they could chew to compensate for no national boundaries. It’s perennially eat or be eaten for the Russian Empire, and the easy (yet unwise) route is to view democracy as just getting in the way.
This can only be taken so far. Geography is not destiny. You only have to look at other multiethnic empires such as the Ottomans to understand that dictatorships are never a requirement for existence. Democracy just takes work.
