The sweeping protests that have riled Moscow signal the end of Russia’s strongman, but the real gains will require millions to adopt the project of democracy and dignity.
BY LEON ARON | FEBRUARY 7, 2012
Click here for interviews with the new wave of Putin’s opposition.
As the Russian protest movement expands and radicalizes in the lead-up to the March 4 presidential election, the key question is not whether Vladimir Putin — and Putinism — will survive. They will not. Apart from its so obviously dysfunctional political system, Russia is facing growing problems of enormous complexity — economic, social, demographic, ethnic — that are impossible to solve within the rigid confines of neo-authoritarian "sovereign democracy” (which, as my Russian friends like to point out, is as to "democracy” as "electric chair” is to "chair”). Inextricably tied to Putinism, corruption, which is likely the worst in Russia’s long history, is reaching the level of paralyzing key economic and social institutions.
There is also a kind of historical inevitability here. ...
