New at Reason

Russia's President-elect Dmitry Medvedev is often portrayed as a pragmatist, someone less rigid than his political patron Vladimir Putin. But Cathy Young sees an inauspicious opening to the Medvedev—or "Putvedev"—era.

Comments

peachy | March 25, 2008, 6:07pm | #

(The daily newspaper Kommersant quoted a Kremlin insider as saying that the government no longer needed "foot-stomping mobs.")

Even if true, I find this less than encouraging - it isn't uncommon for the street thug element to be purged once they've served their purpose, and the repressive regime is well enough established that it doesn't need such an unpredictable and difficult to control tool. Indeed, the purge may in fact be the price negotiated by the respectable elements of society for accepting the new regime... in which case it's a bad sign all around.

andy | March 25, 2008, 6:19pm | #

has anyone else gotten hacked while reading this article? i just find it odd that, while leaving the article about putin open at lunch, i come back to find that my work e-mail account has been attempting (and failing) to send spam. many of these returned emails are, strangely, in russian. have there been any other people experiencing this?

Douglas Gray | March 25, 2008, 8:14pm | #

The thing that really bugs the neo-con pundits , is that Putin is really popular; he gets good approval ratings from the Russian people overall; he behaves like Bush and Dick Cheney, both of whom have very low approval ratings over here. It's not fair.

Jim Walsh | March 25, 2008, 10:57pm | #

Don't get me wrong: I don't particularly like or trust Putin. But let's face it: Russia is a big-ass country with no classical liberal philosophical tradition, and little, if any, experience with the so-called democratic process.
To put it bluntly: Russia wants - needs - a czar. And like it or not, for better or for worse, they've got one.
What the hell - it still beats the bejesus out of Communism...

Aresen | March 26, 2008, 12:42am | #

Jim Walsh

I disagree. I think Russians seek the "Good Tsar" as someone who will solve all their problems for them. However, the inherent centralization of authority leads to corruption and backwardness in the country - even if the "Tsar" in question is personally impeccable in his conduct.

Unless Russians learn to accept the apparent "instability" of a truly democratic system, I think the corruption inherent in the 'Tsarist' system will cause the country to slide ever further behind Europe and the US.

In terms of real power and influence, Russia already counts less than the US and Europe. China has probably also passed them. India will soon.

dead_elvis | March 26, 2008, 12:51am | #

has anyone else gotten hacked while reading this article?

I also had something weird happen- as the article was loading I got redirected to an ebay auction page. I quit, and installed a security update that I'd been procrastinating on installing (this is on a Mac, 10.4, using Safari). Revisited the page after, and no redirect.

economist | March 26, 2008, 7:50pm | #

Aresen,
What's not democratic about Russia's current system? The people voted overwhelmingly for his party, after all. Now, of course, Russia's current system is authoritarian and corrupt, but that's different from not being democratic.

economist | March 26, 2008, 7:51pm | #

Did anyone notice the add for "Find Your Russian Beauty" on this page?

Aresen | March 26, 2008, 9:01pm | #

economist

mea culpa I used "democratic" as a shorthand for "fully open election process with free expression of opinion and respect for civil liberties, including independent media and toleration of dissent."

economist | March 27, 2008, 4:02pm | #

Yeah, but I have a strong suspicion that Russia would still be under Putin's party, even without their distortion of the elections. The vast majority of Russians want an authoritarian leader. It's what they've always had and most people don't want to change that.