I feel most empires fell when they started to act human, but then look at Russia. They kept a pretty strong hand, and they fell from Afghanistan alone because Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires. I guess you just can't sustain it. ↗
It is already clear, after twenty years of socialism in Russia, that if you do not provide your society with a new religion, it will gradually revert to the old one. ↗
Whilst in Prussia poets only speak of the love of country as one of the dearest of all human affections, here there is no man who does not feel, and describe with rapture, how much he loves his country. ↗