In 1970, Soviet dissident Andrei Amalrik observed in "Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984?" that "all totalitarian regimes grow old without realizing it." Amalrik was correct, and the regime established since 2000 by PresidentVladimir Putinis likely to fall apart — perhaps this year — for the same reason that the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

It should be remembered that the Soviet Union's collapse was not the result of PresidentMikhail Gorbachev's reformist "betrayal." Nor was it caused by falling oil prices or U.S. President Ronald Reagan's military buildup. Soviet communism was doomed long before then, when, as Amalrik predicted, the Communist myth finally died in the hearts and minds of ordinary people and officials alike.

In a mere 13 years, Putin's regime, with its grand ideological style, has passed through all of the stages of Soviet history, becoming a vulgar parody of each.

The first stage, that of creating the regime's legitimizing myth, generates a heroic demiurge, the father of the nation. Whereas the Bolsheviks had the 1917 revolution, the Putinists had the second Chechen war of 1999 and the bombings of apartment buildings in Buynaksk, Moscow and Volgodonsk that year. Thus was born the myth of the heroic intelligence ...

A year from yesterday, the Winter Olympics flame will be extinguished, drawing to an end two weeks of sporting festivities that will have put Sochi and Russia in the global spotlight like never before. International observers hopefully will have witnessed a spectacular sporting event, but they will also be eager to see what kind of statement the games have made about the new, modern Russia and its place in the world.

Hosting the Olympic Games is a showcase of national pride, culture and capability like no other. Previous Games have proved that the Olympics is one of the very few international events that can change the way its host country is viewed by the world — for better or for worse.

Vancouver's hosting of the last Winter Olympics is a good example. The success of the games, combined with smartly targeted promotional activity to capitalize on the event and its afterglow, helped propel Canada from 12th place in the Country Brand Index in 2006 to first in 2010.

As London prepared to host the 2012 Summer Games, British businesses and the British government were quick to recognize the scale of the opportunity.

Sponsors, suppliers and thousands of other companies and brands with a stake ...