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Comment by BugBrother | Hacker News Reader

I assume this is posted and up voted now because of the similarities to Putin?

Anyway, let me recommend "Down and out in Paris and London". It taught me more about the human condition, and why you want to stamp out poverty and let everyone to be able to have a humane life, than most any book I ever read.

Also, imho after learning a bit about Eastern Europe after 1945, I put "Animal farm" along "1984". It is a master piece.

Edit: 'adventured', I really hope you are correct. The problem with your argument is that we see Hitler with hindsight now; he was a joke in the beginning too.

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Putin is almost entirely lacking the cult of personality, the movement, around him that Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Lenin, Fidel, etc. all had. He wasn't a revolutionary, he's primarily a gangster, and historically those are relatively short-lived and weak political types. Putin has more in common with Capone than Hitler, he leads a cult of money and theft.

Even Putin's attempts at nationalistic projection have been remarkably pathetic by historical comparison. Putin's dominance of Russia won't leave the mark / impact that other far more dangerous people throughout history have. Stalin would eat Putin for lunch.

I expect Putin to be forced out of office, rather than die in office. If Putin's inner circle wanted him gone, he'd be gone tomorrow. Eventually they'll tire of him.

I thought of Putin too when I first saw this posted a day ago for the reason that Putin has indicated many time that he would like to reestablish the USSR. If he ends up invading Ukraine and other former Soviet states (he already took a test drive through Georgia), we were all forewarned and did nothing to prevent it - much as Hitler's clear statements were ignored. I hope Putin has more foresight as this could be an enourmous disaster.

"The breakup of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century." - Putin 2005

In theory, the break up was good. But for the human beings directly affected, it was a mixed bag.

You'd'be surprised by how well his nationalistic projection works nowadays

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