Yet many commentators ignore this fact, arguing that because Russia's crisis is terminal, it can not play a role on the international stage. That is a great oversimplification. History does not move in simple lines, either upwards or downwards. And we know from history that revolutions take decades, if not centuries, to work themselves through. It was nearly 200 years before the Americans finally established the universal democracy which they proclaimed in 1776.
History is supposed to have accelerated since then.
But the generations still succeed one another at roughly the same rate, and underlying public opinion only changes with the generations, not with the headlines of today's newspaper. We will not understand very much about the present Russian revolution if we fail to understand the factor of time. Older Russians, who remember the prestige and power their country once enjoyed, may yearn to recreate the past. But any such enterprise would have to overcome huge and probably insurmountable practical difficulties. There is no reason to believe that the vast majority of Russians would be willing to pay the necessary price.