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Last time Russia was a formidable power, it was part of the USSR.
Modern Russia is a capitalist state. The interests of the capitalist class and the interests of the working class are opposed. The capitalists wouldn't permit Putin to remain in power if he made Russia a better place for people, by supporting the people instead of his fellow billionaires.
The USSR was a formidable power because of vassal states also known as good old imperialism, something Putin desperately tries to replicate. The mindset of Russia's leaders today isn't so different from Soviet times.
If that was the relationship, the USSR's constitution wouldn't have permitted SSRs to leave with a simple referendum, nor would they have suffered so much after breakup of the USSR. Instead we see their housing and public infrastructure has been left to rot without the cooperation and relative effectiveness of the USSR's economic system.
We know what imperialism looks like. When the UK built infrastructure in India and Africa, it consisted of railways from the mines to the ports. The literacy rate in India under Britain never got above 12%. The USSR built trains connecting even remote villages and subway systems in any city >1 million. Most of the former USSR countries still have some of the highest rates of educational attainment in the world.
The USSR blurred the line. There was decentralized industry and multiculturalism, but also Russian supremacy, genocide, and military conquest.
There was very much the threat of violence in 1990 and 1991, even if the original USSR framework was very liberal. Not to mention the USSR-led coups in Czechoslovakia and Hungary.
It's also important to note that the Russian SFSR itself was an empire ruled from Moscow before the revolution. That did not change much after the revolution.
https://youtu.be/tVRUBs3T4ic