Soviet Lessons for 21st-Century Populism

Stephen Sestanovich, Wash Post
European politics today shows how much has changed since the liberal populism of the late 1980s and early '90s. Populism is now almost everywhere illiberal — thriving on ethnic hostility and exclusion. East European movements and leaders used to denounce a corrupt elite that they said blocked integration into a broad democratic Western community. Today they say real democracy is impossible unless that integration is reversed. In the view of 21st-century populists, only the elite benefit from integration.