Aron makes some good arguments for why the Russian political system is facing a crisis. Understanding why that is true would be more constructive for authorities and commentators than trying to dismiss it by ad hominem attcks on the author.

What I found to be his most insightful point is that authoritarian regimes that rely on force rather than consent of the governed citizens cannot root out corruption within their ranks.In fact, as almost any Russian business person will tell you, corruption at all levels of the Russian bureaucracy exists and is even worse than the soviet period. From bribing for better medical care in hospitals, food and building inspectors in stores, the police force to Moscow municipal city business permit office, corruption flourishes at all levels. As the author pointed out, the rule of law in Russia protects the power and wealth of the rulers, not the rights of the governed. There are countless examples.

However Russia today is not the Brezhnev regime and there is a big difference between then and now...oil and mineral commodity prices. While the regime today doesn't have the same grip on information as the Soviet regime did, the oil and mineral reveues that trickle down to the population and keep them (and the security forces) fed and the hot water on. If that remains stable, is it likely that the more conservative provincial parts of the country will join the activist urban intelligentsia? I think the author is rather premature in his prediction. Putin and the regime has a relatively functional security apparatus and the resources to pay it. There is no doubt that the Russian system is entering a period of change but depicting the authorities as boxed in against a wall at this stage is wishful thinking; they still hold some powerful cards in their hand. More likely than the immediate collapse of the regime or a sudden change of heart for democracy by the Kremlin are more attempts at surface level liberalization for PR purposes. Meanwhile the security forces will redouble their efforts to use the same low level repressive techniques they have used since Putin came to power in 2000 to disrupt the opposition. This of course will lead to a type of stalemate with three possible outcomes: 1) if oil and commodity prices will remain high over the next several years then the opposition leadership will be jailed, inexile abroad or find their livelihoods comeplete destroyed; 2) oil and commodity prices will fall and the Russian provincial masses will join with support for a change in government; or 3) the authorities find some way to come into common dialogue with the opposition movement and there is a shift toward genuine reform and rooting out of corruption. However this is the least likely possibility due to the nature of the regime. Only a true soul searching effort and transformation of attitude of the people who compose the regime could lead to this best outcome for Russia. And that is, unfortunately, quite unlikely.

It was obvious that Putin's regime will come to an end soon or later. He wasn't about a real plicy, but more about to show off himself as a "real" man for the country, real russian rambo. Dant? balinimas

The writer of this article is basically promising a revolution in Russia and is, naively, hoping that this revolution would turn out liberal in nature, transforming Russia's civil society into an "active democratic force". Similar hopes were put on other countries during civil unrest - Russian Empire in 1916-1917, Iraq in 1950s, and Egypt and Libya more recently. In all of these cases extremists came to power - communists in Russia, Islamists in Iraq and Libya, and military dictators in Egypt. It has been demonstrated repeatedly that a huge majority of revolutions in non-Western countries result in semi-dictatorial regimes being replaced by more dictatorial regimes (as the Russian saying goes, ???? ?? ????).
......
Read more at nofilternews.com

So this is what happens when you let a think tanker out to do some "reporting" in the real world: He talks to a handful of people spread throughout a country of 180 million, all of whom share a single purpose and mindset - which, mirabile dictu! - happens to agree with his own, and then draws broad conclusions to show everybody he's been right all along.

Where can I sign up for a job like that?

Trying to clean up the image of the opposition will take much more than one article in the FP. The woman Leon mentioned, Ms. Chirikova, is rude, crude and a loudmouth. Practically every day in her twits there are "spits", like "Too bad they (pto-Putin demonstrators) left quickly, I would have spat in their ugly mugs" or "My friend *** today spat on their banner".
Her latest, today postings
"4irikova Yevgenia Chirikova
?????? ????? ?????????????? ??????? ?? ?????????? ??????????. ???????- ????? ??????."
I feel shamed in front of the civilized Japanese gentleman by the __debiloids__" members of the Nashi. They are the disgrace of Russia"
Next, "4irikova Yevgenia Chirikova
????? ? ??????????????? ?????? ???????? ? ???????????. ???? ??????????? ? ???????? ???????? ???????,??? ??????? ??) "
People with the intelligent faces recognized and thanked me. Aunties - provocateurs with the alcoholic faces screemed that they adored Mr. Poo."

You call it an opposition without hatred? The "Snob" magazine a couple days ago called Russia general electorate "cattle, sheep, drunkards who piss in the stairways" ..

Be sure, Russian people read and understand what kind of the future the opposition prepares for them in the New Order.

Communism - as an economic system - was replaced in Russia by state-sanctioned monopolism. I think Putin got the idea from the US, actually. The collapse of the Soviet Union elevated its superpower rival into an object of envy and desire to Russians, and it was our corporations reaping huge profits from their monopolistic market positions, and grabbing influence over governmental institutions (corruption, in other words), which seemed to be our source of economic strength. What better legacy could Putin hope to achieve than to duplicate that in Russia? He needed huge corporate monopolies, and he created them.

He got it wrong. An authoritarian at heart, he was never subordinate to corporate interests. Instead, he dictated to corporations using the power of the state. He stomped on his own creations with a heavy foot. There was none of the slavishness of Western politicians to their corporate masters, who do their bidding and mouth platitudes which justify rule which benefits corporations and the wealthy above all others. Russia's newly-created corporate oligarchs were, by comparison with Western oligarchs, impotent.

He also missed the long-term political and economic implications of the corruption and price-gouging which is endemic to monopolistic economies. They're great for concentrating wealth at the top, not so great for sowing contentment among the masses or generating living-wage jobs. Russia got its instant billionaires, but this didn't do much for workers.

The thing that has saved Putin this long has been the injections of cash made possible by becoming a net energy exporter. But even that boon has been crippled by corruption and state meddling, which has disillusioned foreign oil companies, dismayed importing nations, impeded growth of production, and led to institutional inefficiencies which sap profits.

It's very, very hard for Russians to embrace anything other than state-controlled economies. They've really had nothing else since the dawn of time.

Meantime, the US is floundering under unsustainable government debt, and corruption has resulted in privatization of fraud-generated profit and socialization of fraud-generated losses on an unprecedented scale. Speaking frankly, corporations have been and are looting the public without restraint. Concentration of wealth and the destruction of large swaths of the middle class - due directly to corporate domination of the legislative and enforcement apparatus of the government - haven't yet brought the US entirely to its knees, but it's hard to conclude that it won't. The US is no longer looking like a worthwhile model for Russia.

In Russia, state-dominated monopolistic capitalism (where influence mainly runs in the opposite direction) is worse. Corruption was always a feature of the Communist state, and the paralyzing effect corruption has on Russia's economy hasn't gone away under Putin. It has accelerated.

Russia's broad problem now is that there aren't any successful models out there to emulate. Crony capitalism as practiced in the West is headed for disaster. State-controlled economies don't work well, either. Socialistic Europe has fallen prey to corporations, too, and bought into the paradigm of privatizing profits and socializing losses. It's not playing out well there, either. China's successes are frail, highly dependent on the West's willingness to accept an unlevel playing field in trade (willingness which is eroding), and don't do much good for most of their vast population; they're looking shaky, too. If Russians want good governance and economic prosperity, they'll have to invent a model that works in Russia, not copy someone else.

So, where are the theorists who are coming up with this model of economics and governance for Russia? I have seen no sign (from my comfortable chair in the US) that they exist.

Yes, you can find noble public servants and citizens in the hinterlands doing their best to solve local problems, and yes, they don't seem to be intimidated by the state (mainly because there haven't been any horrible pogroms directed at citizens for a while now). But how do you go from well-intentioned citizens scattered here and there to a dynamic, well-governed and prosperous Russia?

I don't think anyone knows, not in Russia or anywhere else.

This is Russia we're talking about. The safe bet is that the Russian solution to problems will be to embrace more authoritarianism, blame the last rulers for their problems, and suffer through a nasty pogram. In a few generations they'll liberalize and ease towards democracy again because authoritarianism isn't much good; but corruption will again wreak havoc and they'll flee to the security of authoritarianism once again.

Putin will become a scapegoat; and as has always been the case in Russia, hard times lie ahead.

This is the view from my chair in the US when I take off the optimism lens. Frankly, I don't know where the author's optimism comes from or how he justifies it. There are some good people in Russia, just as there are good people in any nation, trying to do the right thing. But it's never been enough in the past; and I see no compelling reason to think it will be enough in the future.

You are wrong about the Southern Baptist support of the civil rights struggle in the 60s. Exactly like the contemporary Russian Church, they stood steadfastly for the (segregated) status quo (as did the southern Methodist laity). Instead, it was the Black church in almost all of its denominations that rallied for such rights, supported in a small part by some northern religious people. I know because I was one of the white southern Methodists who despised the demonstrators.

But, there was an even more crucially important ingredient that spurred and insured change in the South -- the ham-fisted overboard obviously unjust and often violent action by the authorities, and the impact that had on national thought. Lester Maddox with his pick ax, George Wallace blocking the schoolhouse door, and Bull Connor with his attack dogs, these guys and their cronies deserved a Nobel Prize!

Without them the Civil Rights movement would have died a little heralded and early death. Their over-the-top actions first engendered and then enflamed the massive and lasting reaction that ensued. If Black demonstrations had been handled in a Machiavellian way, delicately and with showy gentleness, they would never have caught fire and moved the suffocating cultural inertia that always impedes rapid societal change.

My point? Putin is the Lester Maddox and George Wallace of Russia. He almost alone will insure true change in Russia! And just like the U.S. northern media of the 60s, Russians have twitter et all to publicize what's happening. It’s all about unintended consequences, folks.

Mr. Aron you are a hack! And your Russophobia is as disgusting and wrong as the anti-semitism of the Tsars 100 years ago.