[insane_dreamer]

Incidentally, a strongly held view by the CCP is that Gorbachev "lost" the USSR due to his lack of consolidated political power and it's a "mistake" that they are most desperate to avoid, and explains in part Xi's rise to unquestioned supreme leader with complete control within the party and over the provinces. (An interesting case is point is how they stripped down Bo Xilai, the CCP Secretary for Chongqing once he became too popular with his constituents--now serving life in prison.) To borrow from Islam, "there is no God but the CCP, and Xi is his prophet."

[UncleOxidant]

But Putin has complete power of Russia similar to Xi has in China and has had for a couple of decades at least.

[vkou]

That's because Yeltsin set the groundwork for him, in his 93' coup. Where he, as president, dramatically overstepped his constitutional authority, the Russian parliament started making impeachment noises, so he ordered to army to seize it.

The mid-level commanders that carried out his orders were rewarded with wealth and power. The ones that didn't got purged.

Russia came out of that coup and constitutional crisis with all power consolidated in the office of the President.

And you would never guess what happened next!

[insane_dreamer]

Hmm, it's almost like allowing a president to consolidate too much power in the Executive Branch can have terrible consequences. If only there was a lesson we could learn from this ...

[vkou]

Yes, it's almost like allowing a president to be above the law, or to appropriate power that is contrary to legislature and the constitution is bad for democracy.

[Muromec]

Take a look at provisional paragraphs of Ukrainian constitution. They are at the end and are quite interesting

[insane_dreamer]

Right. He and Xi adopted similar approaches. In China this took the form of "rooting out corruption" (sound familiar?), where, coincidentally, all those who were "corrupt" ended up being those with the power to challenge Xi.