Post-Communist leaders embraced their former enemies’ institutions publicly

Evidence

Its former leader Achille Occhetto traveled to Wall Street, declaring its banks “the temple of democracy” and NATO “the center of civilization.” On TV the millionaire Silvio Berlusconi, flanked by scantily clothed female presenters, was proclaiming the advent of a “people’s capitalism.” — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment, 126