Democracies rarely work out in the first half-century. France took 80 years to get from revolution to stable democracy. Germany took almost 30 years with the help of two world wars (80 if you count East Germany), and they had constitutional monarchy before that.
The US and Canada transitioned easily because they’d had 200+ years of democracy in action, and were building on a tradition of partial democracy going back hundreds of years before that. But most countries have a long rough period of backsliding into autocracy once they start to kick the habit. Russia is one of them.
MatterOfTrust on
> The verdict in the trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky on 15 December will be a key litmus test. If he’s sent to jail for the 14 years they want, then we can say that the Putinist side of the Kremlin is asserting itself. Putin wouldn’t want him ever to be released. He hates Khodorkovsky. But if there’s an equivocal sentence – if he is convicted but only given a two-year sentence to take us past the 2012 elections – or if he’s acquitted, which isn’t likely, or if he’s convicted but offered a pardon, then it would be a real sign that the liberals still have a say.
An interesting choice for a litmus test. In the end, the author’s prediction was correct, and Khodorkovsky was pardoned in 2013 – but neither then, nor especially today, Putin’s government showed signs of liberalizing.
I remember hearing similar sentiments about Medvedev’s presidency from 2008 to 2012 – there were hopes that Medvedev was a sign of softening of the central power in Russia and slowly transferring more freedoms to people and cooperating with the West. It turned out to be nothing but a ruse.
The article talks a lot about history and mentality, but for anyone interested in the practical side of things and especially the recent history from the 90s to today, I very much recommend *Putin’s People* by Catherine Belton. The research she had done while stationed as a foreign reporter in Kremlin is incredible, and she touches upon a lot of the current hot topics, including young Trump’s business connections with Russian oligarchs, the origins of Russian slush funds abroad, the government takeover of all the major independent news sources, the takeover of oligarch funds and the country’s natural resources by the FBI, the role of Moscow apartment bombings in the rise of Putin’s popularity, and so much more. It’s a great read with a ton of sources for later research.
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Democracies rarely work out in the first half-century. France took 80 years to get from revolution to stable democracy. Germany took almost 30 years with the help of two world wars (80 if you count East Germany), and they had constitutional monarchy before that.
The US and Canada transitioned easily because they’d had 200+ years of democracy in action, and were building on a tradition of partial democracy going back hundreds of years before that. But most countries have a long rough period of backsliding into autocracy once they start to kick the habit. Russia is one of them.
> The verdict in the trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky on 15 December will be a key litmus test. If he’s sent to jail for the 14 years they want, then we can say that the Putinist side of the Kremlin is asserting itself. Putin wouldn’t want him ever to be released. He hates Khodorkovsky. But if there’s an equivocal sentence – if he is convicted but only given a two-year sentence to take us past the 2012 elections – or if he’s acquitted, which isn’t likely, or if he’s convicted but offered a pardon, then it would be a real sign that the liberals still have a say.
An interesting choice for a litmus test. In the end, the author’s prediction was correct, and Khodorkovsky was pardoned in 2013 – but neither then, nor especially today, Putin’s government showed signs of liberalizing.
I remember hearing similar sentiments about Medvedev’s presidency from 2008 to 2012 – there were hopes that Medvedev was a sign of softening of the central power in Russia and slowly transferring more freedoms to people and cooperating with the West. It turned out to be nothing but a ruse.
The article talks a lot about history and mentality, but for anyone interested in the practical side of things and especially the recent history from the 90s to today, I very much recommend *Putin’s People* by Catherine Belton. The research she had done while stationed as a foreign reporter in Kremlin is incredible, and she touches upon a lot of the current hot topics, including young Trump’s business connections with Russian oligarchs, the origins of Russian slush funds abroad, the government takeover of all the major independent news sources, the takeover of oligarch funds and the country’s natural resources by the FBI, the role of Moscow apartment bombings in the rise of Putin’s popularity, and so much more. It’s a great read with a ton of sources for later research.