En Rusia, la crisis financiera de la UE es observada con matices. Algunos la ven con cierta simpatía, mientras que otros la observan con malicia. Las dificultades de Europa reabren el debate sobre la relevancia de lo “europeo” en Rusia, que surge periódicamente en nuestra historia: lo occidental frente a lo eslavo. Atlantistas y euroasiáticos. Liberales y conservadores. Ahora, los “euroescépticos” rusos insisten en debatir qué es más importante y más cercano: ¿Europa o Asia?, ¿la UE o China?, ¿los países desarrollados o los emergentes?

Este debate tiene poco sentido. En la era de la globalización, el ámbito geográfico tradicional pierde relevancia, y es imposible distinguir entre Oriente y Occidente. La geografía ha dejado de ser un factor determinante para el orden económico, el estilo de vida o las perspectivas de desarrollo. Las empresas europeas fabrican en China, los jóvenes japoneses estudian en Oxford, la ropa de diseño italiano se confecciona en Malasia y los ingenieros indios programan para Silicon Valley sin salir de su Bangalore natal. Por lo tanto, resulta mucho más productivo diferenciar no por la geografía, sino por el éxito (o fracaso) al adoptar las tendencias actuales y aprovechar las ventajas competitivas.

En Moscú, y no solo aquí, se alzan voces proclamando que el centro de gravedad de la actividad económica mundial está desplazándose del Atlántico al Pacífico, que el “proyecto europeo” es demasiado complicado y difícil de implantar, que Europa en absoluto está preparada para los desafíos globales y que está abocada a la creciente acumulación del poder asiático. Concluyen que Rusia debería distanciarse progresivamente de una Europa inevitablemente decadente, vinculando su futuro a la “civilización del Pacífico”.

Nadie duda de los recientes logros de las economías asiáticas, pero es aventurado hablar de declive europeo. Van 100 años de anuncios de decadencia europea, pero el continente sigue siendo un jugador de primera en la economía global, fuente de innovación tecnológica, y un gran laboratorio social. El potencial del proyecto europeo está lejos de agotarse. El ritmo de modernización de las economías asiáticas claro que es admirable, pero no hay que olvidar que la modernización social y política van notablemente retrasadas. En otras palabras: hoy nadie tiene garantizado el liderazgo.

Se están imponiendo cambios muy estrictos en las reglas de juego; todas las regiones están compitiendo duramente para defender su lugar y jugar un papel en la economía y la política futuras. La feroz competencia global no excluye -y con frecuencia implica- una colaboración más estrecha. Europa y Asia en particular se necesitan mutuamente en lo económico, lo tecnológico y lo cultural. Los modelos “europeo” y “asiático” son complementarios y esta interdependencia parece incluso aumentar con el paso del tiempo.

En este contexto, ¿qué pasa con Rusia? ¿Puede Rusia convertirse en un mediador activo entre las dos grandes regiones? La respuesta a esta pregunta depende en gran media del equilibrio de poder en el mundo y del futuro del propio país. En realidad, hoy la cuestión no es si Rusia pertenece a Europa o a Asia, sino una mucho más pragmática: Rusia no debe descolgarse de la cooperación emergente entre ambos continentes ni quedarse al margen de los procesos de integración económica, científica, educacional y cultural.

Por desgracia, esa amenaza es muy real. Rusia está presente en los mercados de Eurasia, pero cabe señalar que su participación en los mecanismos de cooperación e integración es muy superficial, actuando principalmente como fuente de materias primas y energía para sus vecinos.

Esta situación no satisface las expectativas y necesidades de nadie. No hay alternativa real a una orientación europea de la política exterior rusa. No se trata sólo de que Europa sigue siendo nuestro socio económico más importante; en Europa están nuestros principales mercados y allí estudian, trabajan y hacen turismo nuestros ciudadanos. Rusia fue, es y será parte de Europa en lo geográfico, histórico y cultural.

Algunos dirán que Rusia es un país europeo, pero que se trata de “otra Europa”. Su relación con el “resto” de Europa seguirá siendo difícil y controvertida. Probablemente esta afirmación tenga cierta lógica. Pero la verdadera pregunta es: ¿la evolución del resto de Europa es complicada solo en sus relaciones con Rusia? Tomemos Alemania. Hace solo 100 años, muchos intelectuales al este del Rin dudaban que Alemania fuera verdaderamente europea. Pero después se convirtió en la locomotora del proceso de integración europea en la segunda mitad del siglo pasado. ¿Y no fue difícil y controvertido el retorno de España al espacio político, económico y cultural europeo después de morir Franco?

Para la mayoría de nosotros, Rusia quedaba lejos de Occidente en el siglo XX, separada por un profundo abismo ideológico. El destino de una Rusia europea era sumamente difícil (aunque fuera parte de la civilización europea en el sentido más amplio; incluso el marxismo es un producto más de la tradición filosófica europea). Hoy, la “guerra fría” ha terminado, y el conflicto ideológico entre Rusia y Europa está en retirada. Entonces, ¿por qué sigue abierta la pregunta de si Rusia pertenece a Europa?

Quizás no se deba sólo a la inercia del pensamiento. Gran parte de la responsabilidad de que Rusia no sea totalmente parte de Europa es de la propia Rusia. Todavía tenemos que aprender a ser europeos; este conocimiento no se adquiere de inmediato. Incluso aún hoy no siempre entendemos la lógica de nuestros socios europeos, ni tenemos en cuenta los matices de su política.

También es fácil hacer reproches a nuestros socios. Es bien sabida la lentitud con la que avanza la burocracia europea. Para Rusia, podría ser más fácil negociar con cada uno de los Estados miembro que con la Unión en su conjunto.

Una cosa está clara: no existe un camino fácil. Cualquier retorno de Rusia al ámbito europeo requerirá persistencia y paciencia, y una inversión política a largo plazo por ambas partes. Este esfuerzo habrá que hacerlo en las áreas que nos unen. Rusia y Europa siempre han estado orgullosas de la calidad de su capital humano. La producción se puede deslocalizar a China o Indonesia, pero el capital humano seguirá siendo nuestra principal ventaja competitiva y el bien más importante de nuestra cultura.

El capital humano es el motor de la modernización – no la capacidad manufacturera ni las reservas monetarias. Ambas tenemos una tradición del capital humano como motor del crecimiento. Y tenemos mucho que ofrecer al mundo en este campo. Esto implica eficacia en nuestra cooperación en ámbitos como la educación, las estrategias de investigación, la política cultural y social y la sanidad, la gestión de las migraciones y el desarrollo de la sociedad civil.

Por supuesto, la interacción social entre Rusia y Europa no puede desarrollarse desligada de la cooperación en materia de seguridad. Nuestros intereses estratégicos coinciden objetivamente. Hablen ustedes. con cualquier político en Berlín, Bruselas, Madrid o Moscú de las amenazas a nuestra seguridad y los desafíos globales. Probablemente los diagnósticos serán muy similares, y las soluciones propuestas también. No quisiera simplificar en exceso -no todas las prioridades de Rusia y la UE coinciden totalmente-, aunque no sea debido solo a nuestra diferente situación geopolítica. Incluso dentro de la propia UE, no siempre hay unidad de criterios. Lo importante es que todos nosotros -desde el Atlántico hasta los Urales, y desde Vancouver hasta Vladivostok- estamos unidos por desafíos y amenazas comunes. Esta realidad, que es poco probable que cambie en el futuro próximo, determinará nuestra cooperación en materia de seguridad.

Los escépticos alegarán que no es el mejor momento para emprender nuevas iniciativas en las relaciones entre Rusia y Europa, estando ambos demasiado pendientes de sus asuntos internos. ¿No deberíamos tomarnos un descanso para evaluar las situaciones emergentes y sólo entonces reanudar el diálogo?

Quiero reiterar que éste es el camino del desarrollo global, profundo y duradero, y no un capricho de los políticos. Nuestros políticos no pueden ignorar las consecuencias negativas para sus países si tardan en emprenderlo.

Vivimos en el mismo continente. No nos sobra tiempo para demostrar nuestra competitividad en un mundo globalizado. Otros países y regiones no van a esperar a que superemos nuestros resentimientos, desconfianza y rencillas. El mundo seguirá avanzando y la velocidad del cambio no hará sino aumentar. También crecerá el número de candidatos al liderazgo mundial; muchos de ellos no surgirán en Europa. Trabajando juntos, complementándonos, será más fácil que Rusia y Europa no sean perdedores en esta carrera mundial. El siglo XXI no debe ser un siglo de sombrías predicciones sobre la decadencia de nuestra civilización común.

La historia de los sucesivos regímenes autoritarios rusos revela pautas recurrentes: sus caídas no se deben a golpes externos ni a sublevaciones locales. Por el contrario, tienden a colapsar por una extraña enfermedad interna: una combinación de creciente indignación de las élites consigo mismas y la conciencia del agotamiento del régimen. La enfermedad se asemeja a una versión política de la náusea existencial de Jean-paul Sartre y llevó tanto a la revolución bolchevique de 1917 como a la desaparición de la Unión Soviética gracias a la perestroika de Mijaíl Gorbachov.

Actualmente, el régimen del primer ministro Vladímir Putin se ve afligido por esa misma enfermedad terminal, a pesar del –o debido al– aparentemente impermeable muro político que construyó a su alrededor durante años. El simulacro putiniano de un gran régimen ideológico sencillamente no pudo eludir su destino. La ima

gen heroica y las acciones gloriosas del líder son actualmente blanco de diarias injurias. Y esos asaltos verbales ya no se limitan a voces marginales de la oposición; están tomando cuerpo en los medios dominantes.

Dos acontecimientos han acelerado bruscamente la caída de la confianza en el régimen de Putin, tanto entre la élite como entre los ciudadanos rusos comunes. En primer lugar, en septiembre, durante el congreso del partido político de Putin, Rusia Unida, Putin y el presidente Dimitri Medvédev formalizaron lo que todos preveían con el anuncio de la intención de Putin de regresar a la presidencia en marzo –declarándose virtualmente dictador vitalicio de Rusia–. Su cruzada por el liderazgo eterno no solo está impulsada por su sed de poder, sino también por temor a que algún día se le responsabilice por sus acciones. El segundo golpe letal al prestigio de Putin llegó con la inaudita escala del fraude perpetrado en las elecciones parlamentarias de diciembre. Según observadores fiables, como los fiscales electorales de la oenegé Golos (La Voz) y Citizen’s Watch, el fraude en favor de Rusia Unida resultó en una ventaja estimada del 15-20% para el partido ahora llamado de “ladrones y sinvergüenzas”. Y las artimañas empezaron mucho antes del día de las elecciones, con la prohibición de nueve partidos opositores.

Esos dos sucesos no solo han convertido el régimen de Putin en ilegítimo, también lo han tornado ridículo. Incluso si el régimen gana formalmente las elecciones presidenciales del 4 marzo, la suerte está echada. Lo que sucede hoy en Rusia es parte de un fenómeno global. A pesar de los extremos esfuerzos de Putin para aislar a Rusia y sus alrededores postsoviéticos, las tendencias antiautoritarias en las regiones cercanas (como el Medio Oriente) se están infiltrando.

Los votantes rusos, el establishment y los intelectuales presienten que el putinismo ya ha perdido. Es solo cuestión de tiempo hasta que los hechos conviertan en realidad esa derrota política. Y, cuando los líderes de otros regímenes autoritarios postsoviéticos –desde Alexander Lukashenko en Bielorrusia y Nursultán Nazarbáyev en Kazajistán, hasta el aspirante a Putin ucraniano Víktor Yanukovich– no sobrevivirán en el poder mucho tiempo.

De hecho, el autoritarismo ya estaba desapareciendo en la ex Unión Soviética, pero la crisis económica global detuvo el proceso. Georgia fue la primera en derrocar a los miembros de su partido comunista. La siguió Ucrania, pero debido a discordias internas, la presión del Kremlin y la indiferencia de la Unión Europea, la revolución naranja fue incapaz de cumplir su promesa de democracia. Ahora Yanukovich intenta revertir los avances democráticos en su país, pero se le está haciendo difícil, a pesar de haber arrestado a muchos de los líderes de la oposición. En Moldavia, hace tiempo que tiene lugar una transición real hacia la democracia. También en Kazajistán las muestras de descontento contra la presidencia vitalicia de Nazarbáyev se hacen oír cada vez más fuerte. Hasta los habitantes de la pequeña Osetia del Sur, anexionada por el Kremlin tras su guerra con Georgia en 2008, están resistiendo frente a los títeres locales del régimen de Putin.

En Rusia, la desaprobación masiva de la corrupta administración putiniana se está transformando en abierto desprecio. Lo que comenzó hace unos meses como una actitud de protesta se ha convertido rápidamente en una norma social. Detener ahora a los manifestantes es prácticamente imposible. Si Putin desata su desarrollado aparato de coerción, habrá jugado la última carta que le queda. Cualquier intento por recurrir a la fuerza bruta para reprimir las manifestaciones acabaría con la legitimidad del régimen. “Todos entendemos –me confió recientemente uno de los ideólogos líderes del Kremlin– pero no podemos alejarnos. Vendrán por nosotros al instante. Así que tenemos que continuar corriendo, como ardillas enjauladas. ¿Por cuánto tiempo? Mientras podamos…”.

Quienes anticipan que el colapso de la dirección actual será un arriesgado salto hacia lo desconocido están en lo cierto. Pero se equivocan si creen que mantener este Gobierno es más seguro. Rusia debe liberarse, de una vez y para siempre, de la corrupción sistémica del putinismo; de lo contrario, ésta consumirá al país.

Russia has been steadfast in its diplomatic support for the embattled regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, even as Assad becomes ever more isolated within the Arab League and the international community.

The Kremlin sent a strong message earlier this month when its aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, anchored off the Syrian port of Tartus. Then last week, Moscow said a draft resolution introduced at the U.N. Security Council by the Arab League calling on Assad to step aside “crosses our red lines.”

Russia’s support for Syria dates back to the days of the Soviet Union. The continuing partnership can be attributed to several factors — historic ties, economic interests and geopolitics.

Recent Russian arms sales to Syria are worth $4 billion, including fighter jets and advanced missiles. Russian business investments in Syria encompassing infrastructure, energy and tourism amount to nearly $20 billion. A natural gas processing plant about 200 kilometers east of Homs is being constructed by a Russian engineering company, Stroytransgaz.

But financial investment carries only so much weight in the face of international criticism. The United States, for example, had billions invested in the Mubarak regime in Egypt, yet halted its support as protests mounted.

Russia has refused to follow suit in Syria, demonstrating a willingness to absorb criticism. For the Kremlin, it appears more important to demonstrate a confident and sovereign foreign policy in defiance of the West.

Russia has major geopolitical and strategic considerations that dictate supporting Damascus. As the world’s largest oil producer and second largest exporter, Russia is in no need of oil supplies from the Arab world. Moscow also reaps the benefits of controlling regional energy markets. Russia therefore has no need to appease the predominately Sunni Arab bloc, which is currently acting in tandem with the West in opposing the Assad regime.

In addition, Russia has its own problems with Islamists in the Caucasus and Central Asia, and it fears rebellions similar to Syria’s breaking out in such areas as Dagestan, Abkhazia, Ingushetia or Chechnya. By supporting its ally in Syria, the Kremlin is sending a strong message to dissident groups that might want to fight unpopular governments within the Russian federation. The Syrian regime also provides Russia with a key strategic asset: a deep warm-water port at Tartus. The lack of such a port has plagued Russia’s global ambitions for centuries and is said to be one reason behind its invasion of Afghanistan.

The importance of the port may not be as great as it was in Soviet times, but unfettered access to the high seas remains a driving force for Russian strategic thinking as Russia’s main ports are either ice-locked for much of the year or land-locked by straits controlled by other powers.

Tartus, which garrisons Moscow’s growing Mediterranean fleet, is worth defending for the Kremlin. The recent shipment of arms delivered to the port underscored Russia’s commitment to its multibillion-dollar arms deal while ignoring an E.U. arms embargo. The port is being upgraded to accommodate larger vessels, as Assad declared the port will eventually be home to some of Moscow’s nuclear-armed warships.

In the end, Russia’s bold declarations and actions in support of the Assad regime are cold calculations meant to revive its position as a global superpower. While Russia has considerable economic and strategic reasons for the continued support, Syria above all offers the Kremlin the chance to counter the West’s influence in the Middle East. Backing the Assad regime is not based on ideological or moral convictions, but on pure power politics.

On March 4, the people of Russia will be going to the polls to elect a president of the country. Extensive discussions are currently under way across society.

I consider it necessary to state my position on a number of issues that seem to be important in this broader debate over the risks and challenges Russia will inevitably encounter.

We need a broad dialogue – about the future, priorities, long-term choices, national development and national prospects. This article is an invitation to join just such a dialogue.

Where we are and where we’re headed

In terms of the basic parameters of social and economic development, today’s Russia has emerged from the deep recession that followed the collapse of totalitarian socialism and the ensuing downfall of the Soviet Union.

Despite the 2008-09 crisis, when we “lost” two whole years, we have attained and surpassed the living standard indices reported in the best years of the USSR. For example, life expectancy in Russia now is higher than in the Soviet Union during 1990-91.

Our economy is growing – and this is, above all, about people – their work, their incomes, their new opportunities. Occurrences of stagnant poverty, when active and employable people could not find jobs or were not paid for months, are essentially a thing of the past.

Independent studies show that 4 in 5 Russians have incomes higher than in 1989 – the “peak” of development of the USSR – which was followed by the decline and imbalance of the country’s entire socio-economic organism. More than 80 percent of Russian families today consume more than their Soviet counterparts did. The availability of domestic appliances has grown by 50 percent, reaching the level of developed economies. One in two families has a car – a threefold rise. Housing conditions have palpably improved.

But what is particularly important is that over the past 10 years, Russia has produced a considerable segment of the population who, in the West, are called the middle class.

The middle class consists of people who can choose to participate in politics. As a rule, their education is such that they can take a discriminating attitude toward candidates, rather than “voting with their heart.”

In 1998, they made up between 5 percent and 10 percent of the population – less than in the former USSR. Now the middle classes are estimated to constitute between 20 percent and 30 percent of the population. These are people whose earnings are 3 times as high as the average wage or salary in 1990.

The middle class must continue to expand. Russia’s main hope lies with the high educational standards of the population and, above all, its youth. As many as 57 percent of people aged 25 to 35 in Russia have a higher education – a level seen in just three other countries: Japan, South Korea and Canada.

This “educational revolution” is fundamentally altering the key features of Russian society and the Russian economy. Better-educated people mean a longer life span, less crime, less anti-social behavior and more rational options. All of this in itself is creating a favorable background for our future.

But this is not enough.

The steady growth in Russia’s wealth in the past decade has largely been due to government policy, including a more rational distribution of the country’s commodity earnings. An innovation-based economy needs to be built for the sake of all educated and responsible citizens, whether they are professionals, business leaders or consumers.

As many as 10 million to 11 million young people will become economically active over the next decade, about 8 million to 9 million of them with university degrees. In this context, 25 million new innovation-based, high-tech jobs for educated Russians is not just phrase-mongering. It is a vital necessity, a required minimum that should be achieved. This national priority should become the focus of state policy and business strategy. We will fail if we rely exclusively on government decisions and on a limited circle of investors and state companies.

New stage of global development

The global crisis that erupted in 2008 has affected everyone and has forced us to reassess many things. Global economic processes and the military political situation have become increasingly unpredictable and should be dealt with through the confident and responsible cooperation of states, primarily the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, and the G-8 and G-20 countries. We must keep working to overcome mutual suspicion, ideological prejudices and shortsighted self-interest.

Given this environment, Russia can and must play a role predicated upon its civilization model, its great history, geography and cultural “genome” that organically combines the fundamental principles of European civilization and many centuries of cooperation with the East, where new centers of economic and political influence are rapidly emerging.

I see our goal in years to come as sweeping away all that stands in the way of our national development, completing the establishment in Russia of a political system, a structure of social guarantees and safeguards for the public, and an economic model that together form a single, living, ever-changing organism of state that is, at the same time, resilient, stable and healthy.

We have a new generation of creative and conscientious people who have a vision of the future. They are already taking the lead in industries, businesses, government bodies and the country as a whole, and will continue to do so.

How we respond to the challenges of the day, use this chance to become stronger and reinforce our status in this rapidly changing world is up to us.

The history of successive authoritarian regimes in Russia reveals a recurring pattern: they do not die from external blows or domestic insurgencies. Instead, they tend to collapse from a strange internal malady – a combination of the elites’ encroaching disgust with themselves and a realization that the regime is exhausted. The illness resembles a political version of Jean-Paul Sartre’s existential nausea, and led to both the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and the Soviet Union’s demise with Mikhail Gorbachev’s Perestroika.

Today, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s regime is afflicted with the same terminal disease, despite – or because of – the seemingly impermeable political wall that it spent years constructing around itself. Putin’s simulacrum of a large ideological regime simply couldn’t avoid this fate. The leader’s “heroic image” and “glorious deeds” are now blasphemed daily. And these verbal assaults are no longer limited to marginal opposition voices; they are now entering the mainstream media.

Two events have sharply accelerated the collapse of confidence in Putin’s regime, both among the “elite” and ordinary Russians.

First, in September, at the congress of Putin’s political party, United Russia, Putin and “President” Dmitri Medvedev formalized what everyone anticipated, with Putin announcing his intention to return to the presidency in March – and thus virtually declaring himself Russia’s dictator for life. His quest for eternal rule is driven not so much by a thirst for power as by a fear that he will one day be held accountable for his actions.

The second lethal blow to Putin’s prestige came with the unprecedented scale of fraud perpetrated in December’s parliamentary elections. According to reliable observers, such as the election-monitoring NGOs Golos (The Voice) and Citizens’ Watch, vote-rigging in favor of United Russia resulted in an estimated 15-20% advantage for what is now commonly called the party of “crooks and thieves.” And the trickery began long before voting day, with nine opposition parties prevented from even appearing on the ballot.

These two events have rendered Putin’s regime not only illegitimate, but also ridiculous. Even if the regime formally “wins” the presidential election on March 4, the die has already been cast.

What is happening in Russia today is part of a global phenomenon. Despite Putin’s best efforts to isolate Russia and its post-Soviet near abroad, anti-authoritarian trends in nearby regions (like the Middle East) are infiltrating.

Russian voters, the establishment, and intellectuals sense that Putinism has already lost. It is now only a matter of time before events make that defeat a political reality. And, after Putin falls, the leaders of other authoritarian post-Soviet regimes – from Belarus’s Alexander Lukashenko and Kazakhstan’s Nursultan Nazarbayev to Ukraine’s would-be Putin, Viktor Yanukovich – will not survive in power for long.

In fact, authoritarianism was already on the way out in the former Soviet Union, but the global economic crisis halted the process. Georgia was the first to oust its communist apparatchiks. Ukraine followed, but, owing to internal discord, Kremlin pressure, and the European Union’s indifference, the Orange Revolution was unable to deliver on the promise of democracy. Now Yanukovich is trying to reverse the country’s democratic gains, but he is finding it difficult, despite imprisoning many opposition leaders.

In Moldova, a real transition to democracy has been underway for some time. In Kazakhstan, too, rumblings against Nazarbayev’s presidency for life are growing louder. Even the people of tiny South Ossetia, which the Kremlin annexed following its war with Georgia in 2008, are resisting the Putin regime’s local puppets.

Back at home, mass disapproval of Putin’s corrupt administration is rapidly turning into open contempt. What began just a few months ago as an attitude of protest has quickly become a social norm.

To stop the protests now is virtually impossible. If Putin unleashes his well-developed apparatus of coercion, he will have played his last remaining card. Any resort to brute force to suppress demonstrations would finalize the regime’s loss of legitimacy.

“We all understand,” one of the leading Kremlin ideologues recently confided to me, “but we can’t get out. They will come for us at once. So we have to keep running like a squirrel in a cage. For how long? For as long as there is strength…”

Those who warn that the current government’s collapse will be a risky leap into the unknown are correct. But they are mistaken to believe that preserving this government is safer. Russia must rid itself, once and for all, of Putinism’s systemic corruption, lest the country be consumed by it.

Durante mi viaje a Moscú, en septiembre de 2008, discutí con gente adicta a Vladímir Putin y no vi una protesta contra él ni por asomo. Durante mi siguiente viaje a Moscú, en marzo-abril de 2011, todos mis interlocutores sin excepción se quejaron amargamente del tándem Putin-Medvédev y el 31 de marzo me encontré en medio de una manifestación antigubernamental, una de las que se iban celebrando cada dos meses desde hacía un año y en las que participaron varios miles de moscovitas. ¿Qué pasó en esos tres años?

Entretanto, se celebró otro juicio con el encarcelado dueño de la empresa petrolera Yukos, Mijaíl Jodorkovski. Y si en octubre de 2003, al ser arrestado, los rusos esbozaron una sonrisa de satisfacción, siete años más tarde, al comprobar que el magnate estaba encarcelado por puro deseo de venganza de Putin contra un opositor fuerte y contestatario, la sociedad rusa anhelaba su liberación. El deseo de justicia del pueblo ruso, por desgracia, no sirvió para nada.

Mientras tanto, muchos otros empresarios y hombres de negocios fueron arrestados y encarcelados, ellos también injustamente, víctimas de jueces, policías y tribunales corruptos. Y es que el Estado burocrático soviético se ha convertido en un Estado burocrático-mafioso putiniano.

Entretanto, se profundizó la crisis económica y, sobre todo, las elecciones a la Duma presentaron graves irregularidades. El fraude electoral era la gota que colmó el vaso.

“La gente está harta”, me confesó Boris Nemtsov, el mayor opositor al Gobierno, poco antes de ser arrestado en la manifestación contra el fraude electoral, en una conversación privada: “La sociedad está cansada de ver que cualquier opositor al régimen acaba en la lista negra del Gobierno, como en la época soviética. La gente está irritada”, siguió Nemtsov, “al oír en la televisón y la radio una incesante propaganda que alaba a Putin y sus títeres y, en cambio, no poder escuchar a los que discrepan. La gente está exasperada que ese “partiya zhulikov i vorov” (“partido de estafadores y ladrones”, expresión que los manifestantes retomaron de Nemtsov) minimice la presencia de los opositores en los medios hasta hacerlos desaparecer”. Ese minimizar de las protestas y hacer oídos sordos a los que están en desacuerdo, como si no existieran, para luego represaliarlos, es algo que Putin, que fue miembro del KGB, aprendió del sistema soviético.

Al principio, la sociedad rusa tuvo la sensación que, después de los años del débil Yeltsin, con Putin volvía un Estado con fuerza y decisión. Esa sensación duró una década.

La sociedad rusa, esos homo sovieticus que hasta hace poco aceptaban de buena gana recriminaciones falsas o manipuladas contra “los otros” de labios de su líder, empieza a ser más cauta. Los rusos, que durante décadas se vieron excluidos de la política, sometidos al paternalismo estatal y que no podían ni debían tomar decisiones de cualquier índole pública, ahora están despertando de un estado de somnolencia soviética y pos-soviética, de ese triste y torpe letargo impuesto que ha durado casi un siglo.

¿Ahora que los opositores piden la revisión de los procesos jurídicos, puede darse el caso que Jodorkovski sea liberado?, le pregunté a Vadim Klyugberg, abogado del empresario represaliado. Klyugberg contestó con sorna: “Dicen que la esperanza es lo último que pierde el hombre. Pero en esta constelación política hace tiempo que la he perdido”.

Con toda probabilidad, Putin en marzo volverá a ser presidente. Pero lo será en otro ambiente que en la década anterior: los rusos han tomado conciencia, al igual que los árabes, los españoles, los chilenos y los americanos que ocupan Wall Street, de que son los ciudadanos los que deben tomar el futuro en sus manos. Y la mentalidad rusa está cambiando. Antes y durante mi visita a Rusia en 2008, los rusos, acostumbrados a los tiempos soviéticos, aceptaban a un político fuerte, esperando de él, además de pan y circo, que confiriera a su país importancia a nivel internacional, como en los tiempos soviéticos. Y Putin lo intentaba, aunque con poco éxito. Para poder mantener su fe, el ruso, ese homo sentimentalis estaba dispuesto a sacrificar lucidez y cerrar los ojos ante los excesos políticos (por ejemplo, ante la matanza de los periodistas rebeldes, como Anna Politkóvskaya y centenares de otros). Pero con la acumulación de las barbaridades promovidas por la cumbre política se acabó la idolatría de los dioses y llegó el momento de la lucidez y la acción.

Hay muchos que emigran a Occidente porque no ven ningún futuro en su país: en Rusia se está produciendo la mayor ola emigratoria de su historia. Los que se quedan, sobre todo los urbanitas en la parte europea, han madurado políticamente y han llegado a ser escépticos y críticos. La sociedad civil -a la que la época soviética destruyó y que, a pesar de los pesares, durante esos últimos 20 años se ha vuelto a formar- empieza a expresar su desconfianza y malestar. Y así, el homo sovieticus, ese homo sentimentalis de antaño, a pequeños pasos se está acercando al homo democraticus. Este hombre votará contra Putin.

On Sept. 24, when it was announced at the congress of the ruling party of Russia that our next president will once again be Vladimir Putin, my wife said to me: “That’s it. We need to leave. I don’t not want to spend the rest of my life in the country of Mister Dobby.” “This is not his country,” I replied. “Let’s wait some more. There will be a social eruption. People are not idiots, they will not agree to this castling move.”

But days passed, weeks, and there was no social eruption. Yes, a few of the usual anti-Putin grumblers — me among them — grumbled. As for the rest of Russia, it seemed to care less: if Putin, let it be Putin. Another 12 years? Let him stay for life, no problem. So I also started to think seriously of leaving. If we — those whom the Putin government makes sick to our stomach — are so few, why should we keep our tranquil compatriots from living happily?

It would not be an exaggeration to say that the rest of the autumn was one of the most depressing periods of my life. It’s hard to feel like a stranger in one’s own country — especially for a writer.

Then came December, and in literally a few days Russia awoke and became an entirely different country. Suddenly it was apparent that people like me were not a marginal minority, that we were many. In Moscow we’re actually a clear majority.

All talk of leaving vanished in my circle, as if it had never happened. The discovery that made us euphoric can be summed up in four words: “This is our country.” The last time we felt this way was 20 years ago, when the Communist regime collapsed.

From outside, the events in Russia may resemble the revolutionary storm that swept through Arab countries, ridding them of authoritarian regimes. But the analogy is deceptive. The only similarity is the important role of social networks in organizing spontaneous protests. What is happening in Russia is quite different, and quite unusual: a revolution of the middle class, a class that is inherently nonrevolutionary.

To many people, including Russians themselves, the sudden awakening of society seems like a miracle. But it is not a miracle. It is a consequence of a natural social process. More precisely — two diametrically opposed processes.

The first is the profound changes that have taken place in Russian society over the past two decades. Millions of people learned to live in “wild” capitalism — making a living without government intervention, surviving in a brutally competitive environment, providing a reasonable standard of living for their families. These seeds germinated underground, almost invisibly to the naked eye, and suddenly grass was sprouting everywhere. The black, naked earth suddenly turned green.

This sudden spring was accelerated by a second social process, which also started a few years back: the deepening degradation of the Putin regime. In the absence of any control by elected deputies, courts or the media, the system lapsed into the illusion that everything is permitted, and began to make mistake after mistake, not even realizing that it was destroying itself.

The Russian Spring in the dead of winter was a direct consequence of the Putin-Medvedev swap announced on Sept. 24 and the equally shameless fraud in the parliamentary elections. Suddenly it became clear that Russians would no longer tolerate such stuff. They had grown up, and the authoritarian diapers had become too tight.

Between the two giant rallies on Dec. 10 and 24, Putin still had a chance to reason with the protesters. But the “national leader” (as his supporters like to call the prime minister) made another mistake, a fatal one: He publicly insulted the participants in the movement, saying they were brainwashed and had sold out. After that, the main object of public indignation was Putin himself, and not the ruling party.

In those two weeks, Putin lost the country.

He, of course, has not realized this yet. He thinks it’s all just noisy Muscovites, and that the rest of the country still supports him. Moreover, he truly believes that he will win the presidential election.

In the current circumstances, that can happen only through colossal fraud. And there is no doubt that the enormous crooked machine in charge of counting votes will not stop at any fraud. But the victory will be Pyrrhic. Putin will lose what’s left of his ratings, and will become an all-Russian object of hatred and ridicule. This will be a very weak president, unlikely to survive long in office.

Paradoxical as this may sound, I would prefer if Putin’s regime did not collapse too quickly. Let him resist at least another year or so. If he left right away, without squandering his popularity to the end, he might yet come back in a fully democratic way — when the crisis hits the living standard, people will begin to talk nostalgically of the “fat years.” A “second coming” would be a catastrophe for the country.

In addition, the still very young shoots of civil society need time to grow and become stronger. The best way for them to mature would be a continuing assault on a rigid, unyielding authoritarianism. In such a struggle, civil society would strengthen and learn to organize. A palette of real political parties would develop — not puppets, as in Putin’s Parliament: a powerful democratic center, with the new left of socialists and communists to one side, and the new right of nationalists on the other.

If the change of power occurred after this process was complete, post-Putin Russia would enter relatively painlessly into the next stage of the evolution of the state. Politically, this would be a tumultuous country, with parliamentary crises, abrupt changes of government, demands for impeachment and all the other attributes of a developing democracy.

But in a country in which a middle class had awakened and realized its power, neither the “siloviki” (the power ministers) nor the oligarchs would be able any longer to monopolize power. Nor could one person.

I’m not a man given to emotional outbursts. In fact, in my many years as a businessman, I’ve always tried to remain a little detached and not let my feelings get in the way of pragmatism. But in witnessing the changes going on in Russia today, I cannot help but feel a little stirring even in this hardened heart.

In the last six months we have become a bit unrecognisable to ourselves. As Russians, we have always loved to sit in the kitchen and criticise this and that and philosophise. But what we are seeing now is a true awakening, when all of us are feeling we have a part to play in the evolution of our nation. Citizens are on the streets demanding fair elections. Social media is buzzing with commentary. All of a sudden, the policies and plans that seemed to be set in stone have come into question, and the government is being pulled into dialogue with its people.

Twenty years ago, many Russians were out on the barricades defending the course of reform against the threat of regression. People who had no experience of living in a democratic society or a market economy were fighting tooth and nail for it. In the years that followed, a lot of people lost not only their life savings, but their faith in the power to effect positive change. Words like democracy and change became dirty words among a large part of our population and turned people off to the idea of participating in the political process.

Many of those who are now playing leading roles in expressing their dissatisfaction are too young to remember that time. They have grown up without portraits of Lenin on the walls. They are free to travel, or leave the country altogether, which many are doing. They can read whatever they like. They go to the market and they see they have a choice of what flavour of ice cream to buy, what brand of coffee to drink, but they do not have this same choice of political leadership, and they want it. The market economy has brought new values. Only now do we have a generation of Russians ready to enact true reforms and with an idea of why democracy and liberalism are values that belong to all of us. The genie is out of the bottle and it’s not going back in. The era of “managed democracy” is over.

It is true that we are better off materially now, and have seen a period of relative economic prosperity on the back of high oil prices. But nothing is immutable. What worked for us yesterday will not work for us tomorrow. It is time to focus on writing the next chapter.

We need a nation that allows its citizens to realise their potential, where the government is not a barrier to development. Our next chapter will include strong independent institutions: the judicial system, a free press, direct elections of governors, increased public oversight of government.

We also need to change our economic course. Our present model will lead to catastrophe as soon as oil prices drop. State and private monopolies, social obligations that outweigh budget revenue, dependence on commodities and an antiquated tax system must be replaced by efficiency, transparency, and competitiveness. To achieve these goals, tough decisions will have to be made. Unpopular decisions. We do not need to reinvent the wheel, but to adopt best practice. We should get the government the heck out of the way of individual initiative and focus on educating professionals and workers suited to the demands of today’s world. Most importantly, we must enact systemic changes that will uncoil the serpent of corruption that is suffocating our development.

At last, we need to decide once and for all that we are a part of greater Europe, and that we share the values of European democracies. For too many years we have been obsessed with the notion that Russia has its own “special” fate, separate and distinct from everyone else. And, as a result, we are often regarded with mistrust and as somehow separate by everyone else. For the first time in a long time, we are not under any threat of attack from outside enemies. Let us take our seat at the table of developed nations as a fully fledged partner, and choose the path of democratic development and respect for inalienable human rights that is our rightful heritage.

There is no question in my mind that we are heading in this direction. The only question now is will our road be bumpy and perhaps bloody, or will we avoid some of the pitfalls we’ve seen in our region and in others and pull off a gradual transition before things reach the boiling point? I, for one, am for the latter. Evolution, not revolution.

The will to change is what we need now. And, above all, common sense.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s reaction to Moscow protesters perfectly illustrates how the former Soviet spy chief can masterfully leverage classic subversion strategies typically found in espionage to undermine the opposition and even ridicule the concept of democracy.

In the wake of the Russian parliamentary vote in early December, a Russian opposition leader far more radically communist than Putin was jailed, and protesters hit the streets to protest what they considered electoral fraud and vote-rigging that led to the crushing victory of Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev’s governing United Russia Party.

Most of what spies do involves subversion — not information collection, as we tend to see in the movies. And an effective way to subvert or dilute a concept or term is to adopt it in name only while assigning it a new substantive meaning under its surface. How many Third World despots have co-opted the term “democratic” for their political party’s title, for example?

Putin heralds the expression of “democracy” the Moscow protests represent, but it’s obvious that the movement is void of any real power. Putin and Medvedev have blocked the liberal, pro-West People’s Freedom Party from even registering as a legitimate electoral alternative, for example. They lose nothing by letting the show of “democracy” play out.

Since the protests started, Putin has asked the electoral commissioner to look into the situation. Chief electoral officer Vladimir Churov has since come back with the fix: 60,000 transparent ballot boxes. Hey, the protesters wanted more systemic “transparency,” right? Well, here it is, in the form of an actual see-through object.

The protesters have also asked for reforms. So Medvedev signed off on some corruption-reduction measures, including developing “measures to reduce the economic interest in committing crimes for profit” and “taking steps to impose restrictions on transactions between state agencies and commercial organizations whose major shareholders include family members of the heads of relevant government agencies.” In other words, “come up with ways to make greedy people less greedy” and “take steps to curtail kickbacks on government contracts.”

These might sound like reasonable measures in the utopian democracy that exists only inside my head, but kickbacks can’t even be stopped in France or between lobbyists and various elected officials in America. Fat chance that greed reduction or kickback curtailment would ever be of substantive value in a country where cash has long been funneled directly and openly to a top layer of government-controlled oligarchs. Still, the right words are being co-opted as cover.

In a classic move ripped straight from Sun Tzu’s “Art of War” — the bible for military and espionage strategy — Putin is also leveraging his opponents’ inherent disorganization against them. Sun Tzu wrote: “When the general is weak and without authority; when his orders are not clear and distinct; when there are no fixed duties assigned to officers and men, and the ranks are formed in a slovenly haphazard manner, the result is utter disorganization.” He calls disorganization a “calamity” to which an army is exposed.

The protesters have asked to meet with Putin to discuss their concerns. He responded that he can’t meet with protest leaders because he doesn’t know specifically what they want or who has any authority among them: “(They) should formulate some kind of common platform and common position, so that it’s possible to understand what people want. Is there a common platform? No. Who is there to talk to?” He has found their precise Achilles’ heel — something President Barack Obama failed to do, or intentionally overlooked because it nicely served his agenda to attack the wealthy.

Occupy Wall Street characterized itself early on as a movement without a single cause or goal, preferring instead to represent a collection of gripes. Rather than putting the onus on OWS to define itself concretely, Obama preferred to shadow-box, responding to the protesters by proposing student loan reforms that would save each debtor about $8 a month, according to research by The Atlantic. We see the result of responding to something undefined with lip service: The protests continue.

Putin insists that the protesters differentiate between leaders with authority and simple participants in the movement, and he requests that they define their platform. It’s not a bad idea, since we may discover that most of the alternatives are far worse than Putin, and that true Russian democracy would be a poisoned chalice for the West.

And it’s a good bet that as soon as these targets come into focus — if they ever do — they’ll be addressed using the same strategies that prove Putin to be an excellent master of subversion.

Twenty years ago, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev resigned, the Soviet Union ended, and Russia began an imperfect transition to democratic capitalism – a transition that has proven to be far more difficult than expected. And yet the recent protests – somewhat similar to those that preceded the end of the Soviet Union – provide grounds for cautious optimism about the future.

So, what lessons can we draw from the successes and failures of Russia’s last two decades of post-Soviet transition? And what lies ahead?

The first lesson is that market competition, responsible macroeconomic policy, and private enterprise generally work. Market reforms eventually resulted in historically high growth rates. While high commodity prices played a part, privatized and new enterprises were the fastest-growing part of Russia’s post-communist economy, and the government played an important role by ensuring macroeconomic stability, maintaining a balanced budget, and using oil revenues to create significant foreign-currency reserves.

Second, a market economy needs strong political and legal institutions to protect property rights and competition. Such institutions are difficult to build from scratch, and doing so is not merely a technocratic task; it requires political change.

Contrary to popular belief, Russia’s reformers understood this challenge from the start. They created a completely new judiciary and tax system, established fiscal federalism, and introduced an independent central bank, an antitrust agency, and many other institutions. But they also knew that these institutions would work effectively only if there was political demand for them – and that this could come only from private owners, a critical mass of which thus had to be created as soon as possible.

That is why the reformers rushed ahead with privatization. But, because privatization took place before corruption was rooted out, it involved substantial abuses, which undermined popular support for private property.

The reformers’ arguments eventually gained ground: most of Vladimir Putin’s reforms during his first presidential term were promoted and even designed by the new capitalists. Private land ownership was introduced, the tax system was streamlined, the business environment was deregulated, a stabilization fund was created, deposit insurance was implemented, and credit-history bureaus were established.

But the unpopularity of privatization also provided support for Putin’s model of state capitalism. Following nationalizations (both overt and through acquisition by state-owned companies), Russia’s government has regained control over the commanding heights of the economy.

Russia’s state capitalism is different from a planned economy, because government-owned companies are supposed to compete in the marketplace and act similarly to private firms. Critics of state capitalism have always pointed out the risk of government capture by such companies’ managers, which is exactly what has happened in Russia, where the state-owned companies have grown so large that it is difficult to distinguish between them and the state itself.

Not surprisingly, government policy has supported these companies through regulation and subsidies, thereby protecting them from competition. Nor is it surprising that these companies failed to eliminate inefficiencies and raise productivity.

This largely explains why annual economic growth slowed from 7% in 1998-2008 to 4% in 2010-2011. Moreover, expansion of state companies drastically reduced demand for market institutions, eliminating corruption and improving the business climate.

In the second half of the 2000’s, as Russian state capitalism came into its own, previous anti-corruption gains were reversed, and the business climate deteriorated to the point that capital flight now stands at about 4% of GDP. That is a stunning figure, given high oil prices, abundant investment opportunities, and the nearly moribund US and European economies – the main recipients of Russia’s fleeing capital.

In short, the third main lesson of Russia’s transition is that state capitalism does not work (at least not without a strong meritocratic political party, as in China). Indeed, recent events have shown the system to be inherently unstable. As market reforms have brought substantial prosperity (average annual per capita GDP, at purchasing power parity, is now $17,000), a large middle class, based mostly in small and medium-size companies and the service sector, developed beyond the reach of the state-owned behemoths. Most of this middle class also lives in large cities – where the battle for Russia’s future is now taking place.

The demands of this middle class have become crucial. Its representatives understand that they must win the battle against corruption or leave the country, as they would have no future in Russia otherwise. That is why they have rallied around the young blogger Alexei Navalny, whose WikiLeaks-like anti-corruption campaign has brought forth evidence of billions of dollars stolen from state-owned companies, luxury limousines bought by officials, and spectacular business careers by the ruling elite’s “wunderkinder” sons and daughters.

The evidence of corruption produced by Navalny, and the nickname he gave to Putin’s political party, United Russia (the “party of crooks and thiefs”), was perhaps the single most important factor underlying United Russia’s loss of its parliamentary majority in December’s general election. Moreover, massive electoral fraud galvanized middle-class grievances, driving tens of thousands of protesters into the streets.

Ironically, the wave of protests since then is consistent with the “modernization hypothesis” that Putin’s government has always used to justify the rollback of democracy in Russia: democracy is sustainable only if society is sufficiently well-off and has a solid middle class; until then, centralized rule is needed.

Now, it seems, sufficient prosperity has arrived, calling forth a middle class solid enough to demand government accountability, the rule of law, and a genuine fight against corruption. Whatever happens in the March 2012 presidential elections, the political mobilization of the middle class will eventually lead to democratization.

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Hace veinte años, el presidente soviético Mijaíl Gorbachov renunció, la Unión Soviética llegó a su fin y Rusia comenzó una transición imperfecta al capitalismo democrático, transición que ha demostrado ser mucho más difícil de lo esperado. Y, sin embargo, las recientes protestas –en cierto modo similares a las que precedieron al fin de la Unión Soviética– sientan las bases para un cauto optimismo sobre el futuro.

¿Qué lecciones podemos aprender de los éxitos y fracasos de las últimas dos décadas de transición postsoviética en Rusia? ¿Y de lo que viene?

La primera lección es que la competencia del mercado, las políticas macroeconómicas responsables y la empresa privada por lo general funcionan. Las reformas del mercado terminaron por propiciar tasas de crecimiento históricamente altas. Si bien los precios de las materias primas desempeñaron un papel, las empresas privatizadas y las empresas nuevas representaron la parte de más rápido crecimiento de la economía de la Rusia postcomunista, y el gobierno ejerció un papel importante al asegurar la estabilidad macroeconómica, mantener un presupuesto equilibrado, y usar los ingresos del petróleo para crear importantes reservas de divisas extranjeras.

En segundo lugar, una economía de mercado necesita instituciones políticas y jurídicas sólidas para proteger los derechos de propiedad y competencia. Estas instituciones son difíciles de construir desde cero, y hacerlo no es meramente una tarea tecnocrática, sino que requiere un cambio político.

Contrariamente a la creencia popular, los reformadores de Rusia comprendieron este reto desde el principio. Crearon un sistema judicial y un sistema fiscal completamente nuevos, establecieron un federalismo fiscal e introdujeron un banco central independiente, una agencia de defensa de la competencia y muchas otras instituciones. Pero también sabían que esas instituciones funcionan de manera eficaz si existe una demanda política para ello y que esto sólo podía venir de los propietarios privados, una masa crítica que había que crear lo antes posible.

Por eso los reformadores se apuraron con la privatización. Sin embargo, debido a que la privatización se llevó a cabo antes de que se arrancara la corrupción de raíz, implicó violaciones sustanciales, lo cual socavó el apoyo popular a la propiedad privada.

Con el tiempo, los argumentos de los reformistas fueron ganando terreno: la mayor parte de las reformas de Vladímir Putin durante su primer mandato presidencial fueron promovidas y hasta diseñadas por los nuevos capitalistas. Se introdujo la propiedad privada de la tierra, se simplificó el sistema tributario, se liberalizó el ambiente empresarial, se creó un fondo de estabilización, se implementó el seguro de depósito y se crearon oficinas de historial de crédito.

Sin embargo, la impopularidad de la privatización también sirvió de apoyo para el modelo de capitalismo de Estado de Putin. Tras las nacionalizaciones (tanto abiertas como a través de la adquisición por parte de empresas de propiedad estatal), el Gobierno de Rusia recuperó el control sobre las palancas fundamentales de la economía.

El capitalismo de Estado de Rusia es diferente de una economía planificada, ya que se supone que las empresas estatales deben competir en el mercado y actuar de manera similar a las empresas privadas. Los críticos del capitalismo de Estado siempre han señalado el riesgo de captura por parte del gobierno de los administradores de dichas sociedades, que es exactamente lo que ha sucedido en Rusia, donde las empresas de propiedad estatal han crecido tanto que es difícil distinguir entre ellas y el propio Estado.

No es sorprendente que la política del Gobierno haya apoyado a estas empresas a través de regulaciones y subsidios, protegiéndolas así de la competencia. Tampoco es de extrañar que estas empresas no hayan podido eliminar las ineficiencias ni aumentar la productividad.

Esto explica en gran medida por qué el crecimiento económico anual se desaceleró desde un 7% en 1998-2008 al 4% en 2010-2011. Más aún, la expansión de las empresas estatales redujo drásticamente la demanda de las instituciones del mercado, eliminando la corrupción y mejorando el clima de negocios.

En la segunda mitad de la década del 2000, cuando capitalismo de Estado ruso entró en mayoría de edad, los avances previos contra la corrupción se revirtieron, y el clima empresarial se deterioró hasta el punto de fuga de capitales se ubica actualmente en alrededor del 4% del PIB. Se trata de una cifra impresionante, teniendo en cuenta los altos precios del petróleo, las abundantes oportunidades de inversión, y las economías estadounidense y europeas casi moribundas, que son los principales receptores de capitales que huyen de Rusia.

En resumen, la tercera lección principal de la transición de Rusia es que el capitalismo de Estado no funciona (al menos no sin un fuerte partido político meritocrático, como en China). De hecho, los acontecimientos recientes han demostrado que el sistema es intrínsecamente inestable. A medida que las reformas de mercado han traído una sustancial prosperidad (el promedio anual del PIB per cápita, en paridad de poder adquisitivo, es de 17.000 dólares estadounidenses), se ha desarrollado una gran clase media, basada sobre todo en pequeñas y medianas empresas y el sector de servicios, más allá de los gigantes de propiedad del Estado. La mayor parte de esta clase media también vive en las grandes ciudades, donde hoy tiene lugar la batalla por el futuro de Rusia.

Las demandas de esta clase media se han convertido en cruciales. Sus representantes entienden que deben ganar la batalla contra la corrupción o abandonar el país, ya que de lo contrario Rusia no tendría futuro. Es por eso que han apoyado al joven bloguero Alexéi Navalny, cuya campaña anticorrupción similar a WikiLeaks ha puesto en evidencia el robo de miles de millones de dólares de empresas estatales, limusinas de lujo adquiridas por los funcionarios, y las carreras espectaculares de negocios por los hijos e hijas wunderkinder de la élite gobernante.

La evidencia de la corrupción puesta al descubierto por Navalny, y el apodo que dio al partido político de Putin, Rusia Unida (el “partido de sinvergüenzas y ladrones”), fue quizás el factor más importante que subyace a la pérdida de Rusia Unida de su mayoría parlamentaria en las elecciones generales de diciembre. Por otra parte, el fraude electoral masivo terminó por acabar con la paciencia de la clase, conduciendo a decenas de miles de manifestantes en las calles.

Irónicamente, la ola de protestas desde entonces está en consonancia con la “hipótesis de la modernización” que el Gobierno de Putin ha utilizado siempre para justificar el desmantelamiento de la democracia en Rusia: la democracia sólo es sostenible si la sociedad es lo suficientemente acomodada y tiene una clase media sólida; hasta entonces se necesita un gobierno centralizado.

Ahora, al parecer, ha llegado suficiente prosperidad, convocando a una clase media lo suficientemente sólida como para exigir la responsabilidad del Gobierno, el imperio de la ley y una auténtica lucha contra la corrupción.

Pase lo que pase en las elecciones presidenciales de marzo del 2012, la movilización política de la clase media finalmente conducirá a la democratización.

Russia is not Egypt. And Moscow is not on the eve of revolution as Cairo was less than a year ago. Indeed, Russia’s powerful have at their disposal assets that former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s regime lacked.

As an energy superpower, Russia can open its coffers to appease, at least in part, the humiliation that it has inflicted on its citizens by falsifying the country’s recent legislative election results. And not all Russians are in the streets. We should beware of the “zoom effect,” which made many people believe that the young protesters of Cairo’s Tahrir Square were fully representative of Egyptian society. They were not. Rural Egypt, like rural Russia, is much more conservative than the young elites who seize the world’s imagination with their protests and embrace of modern social media.

Furthermore, Mubarak was old and sick, and no longer enjoyed the trust of his people. Vladimir Putin, by contrast, exudes energy and health, and may still reassure many segments of Russian society whose main concern is their country’s glory rather than its citizens’ happiness.

Yet Putin may be overplaying the macho card so excessively that it could backfire and contribute to his isolation from Russia’s urban and more educated voters. But, even if the tens of thousands of demonstrators are unlikely to threaten the survival of Putin’s regime, the Kremlin would be wise to take them seriously. The protesters’ trademark so far has been moderation and restraint; nothing would be more dangerous than violent repression.

Beyond the issue of violence, the Russian authorities would take a huge historical risk by failing to register the public’s growing alienation. Sheltered physically and metaphorically by the Kremlin’s high walls, and having progressively lost contact with the living conditions of ordinary people (if they ever had any), Russia’s leaders seem to consider their lifestyle to be both normal and eternal.

From the standpoint of condemning elite behavior, Russian protesters evoke, at least partly, the actors of the Arab revolution. In their denunciation of “Soviet electoral practices,” they reject the combination of despotism and corruption that characterized Soviet power yesterday and Russian power today – rhetoric familiar from Arab revolutionaries. As young Arabs told the rulers of Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Yemen, and other Arab countries, this new generation of Russians is telling Putin: “Get Out!”

But most participants hold few illusions about the efficacy of their protest. They want to express to Russia’s rulers the extent of their frustration and determination. They may not expect regime change, but they expect at least some minimal reforms.

Above all, they want to set limits on Putin’s power. But their protest’s ironic consequence may be that the more moderate of the two figures at the summit of Russian politics, Dmitri Medvedev, will not return to the post of prime minister, as had been planned. A game of political musical chairs would simply be too much in the eyes of too many Russians.

The protests have caught the Kremlin’s masters, as well as the majority of Russia’s citizens, by surprise. They failed to recognize that globalization – particularly the global information revolution – has made the world more transparent and interdependent than ever. The protesters of Madrid were inspired by those of Cairo, and were themselves a source of inspiration from New York to Tel Aviv – and, subsequently, to Moscow.

A lesson emerges: with the deepening of the economic crisis, on the one hand, and instant global connectivity, on the other, what was accepted yesterday is regarded as intolerable today.

That applies to Russia, too. For a long time, Russia has perceived itself as a “White Africa.” The average life expectancy of Russian men, slightly below 60, is more African than European (or even Asian, for the most part). The corrupt enrichment of so many Russian elites mimics the disastrous habits of many of their African counterparts.

But this comparison has limits. Despite its many problems, Africa today has become a continent of hope. Its population is exploding, as are its economic-growth rates. Senegalese firms seek to help their Spanish business partners, while Portugal extends an almost royal welcome to the leaders of their former colony, newly oil-rich Angola.

Africa is on the rise, while Russia is on the decline. The democratic idealism that accompanied the fall of communism 20 years ago is gone, but the “imperial pride” recovered in part during the Putin years may not be enough to compensate for the contempt with which the Russian state treats its citizens. Russia’s demonstrators’ message is simple: “Too much corruption, disdain, and inequality is too much.” Russia, like the Arab world, wants modernity.

En los últimos días de la Unión Soviética, pasé mucho tiempo en un complejo de torres de apartamentos situado junto al río Moscova, buscando respuesta a una pregunta que me parecía fundamental sobre el futuro de nuestro adversario durante la guerra fría: ¿Podría Rusia cultivar una auténtica clase media? No una clase privilegiada, formada por protegidos del Estado, sino una capa de emprendedores independientes que se convirtieran en el motor y la prueba del ascenso social.

Aquel lugar junto al río era lo que se denominaba un complejo residencial juvenil, el producto de un programa típicamente absurdo de la Liga Juvenil Comunista para aliviar la escasez de viviendas. Jóvenes profesionales que trabajaban en empresas estatales importantes -en el caso de aquel complejo, sobre todo, científicos de un instituto de investigaciones nucleares e ingenieros de la planta que fabricaba la versión rusa del transbordador espacial- dejaban sus puestos durante varios meses para trabajar en la construcción, en una especie de cuadrilla comunitaria sobrecualificada. Cada familia pasaba cientos de horas vertiendo cemento e instalando tabiques, y luego se mudaban a su estupendo apartamento nuevo. La idea era que, si a los jóvenes se les liberaba de tener que compartir los abarrotados pisos de sus padres y se les animaba a forjar una nueva comunidad satisfecha, se dedicarían todavía con más lealtad a sus respectivos e importantes trabajos.

Pero eso ocurría en 1991, una época llena de posibilidades. Muchas familias de mi pequeño microcosmos se mudaron a sus nuevos hogares en el complejo residencial juvenil Atom y a continuación dejaron de trabajar para el Estado y se incorporaron al nuevo sector privado. Yo seguí la pista a una muestra de familias de Atom mientras trataban de adaptarse a la novedad de una vida autosuficiente.

(Mientras tanto, uno de sus contemporáneos, Vladímir Putin, estaba terminando su crucial experiencia en el bastión supremo del Estado, el KGB. La última tarea encargada al coronel Putin en el servicio de espionaje fue la vigilancia de los estudiantes en la Universidad Estatal de Leningrado).

Mi residente favorito en Atom era un ingeniero musculoso e idealista llamado Igor. Mientras casi todos los nuevos capitalistas practicaban algún tipo de trapicheo -la importación de vaqueros, ordenadores, discos de rock-, Igor fue uno de los pocos que se propuso triunfar como fabricante privado. Su plan era brillante. La gente, de pronto, estaba ganado dinero, pero desconfiaba de los nuevos bancos privados. Igor reformó una vieja fábrica para producir cajas fuertes de gran calidad.

Para Rusia fue una época de confusión y búsqueda, el deseo de ser normalniye lyudi, gente normal. Miles de personas, entre ellas un contingente de Atom, habían salido a la calle para enfrentarse a un intento de golpe del sector más duro y para celebrar su desacostumbrado poder. ¿Pero entonces qué? Había que improvisar todo, desde las reglas de mercado hasta el significado de la vida, sobre las ruinas purulentas de un monstruoso experimento fallido. Abundaban los chanchullos. Los místicos, los sanadores y los hipnotizadores atraían enormes multitudes. En su búsqueda de algo en lo que creer, los residentes de Atom invitaron a un sacerdote a darles una lección semanal en su canal de circuito cerrado de televisión. Un vecino que buscaba una forma de satisfacción más laica decidió albergar una comuna de amor libre.

Pasemos a una década después, a mitad de camino en el recorrido hasta hoy. La nueva Rusia seguía siendo una obra a medio hacer. Aquel oscuro coronel del KGB era un presidente muy popular. Putin ofrecía una prosperidad razonable, un sentido paternalista del orden y un relato tranquilizador de orgullo nacional. El precio -salvo para quienes eran una verdadera amenaza contra el régimen, en cuyo caso era verdaderamente elevado- era tolerable: una aceptación implícita del statu quo, una pequeña cesión de la dignidad. Calla y hazte rico.

Para muchos, la entrañable confusión de principios de los noventa había dejado paso al desencanto. El espléndido documental de Robin Hessman My Perestroika, estrenado el año pasado, sigue a cinco amigos de Moscú algo más jóvenes que mi grupo de Atom. La película captura la ambivalencia de los que vivieron a caballo entre los tiempos soviéticos y la nueva libertad. Viven razonablemente bien, tienen libertad para decir lo que piensan, pero falta algo, una meta más amplia. “Lo que pasa”, dice Borya, un profesor de instituto que estuvo en las barricadas en 1991, “es que los ideales que ardían en el corazón de una persona en los primeros noventa se profanaron, y no quedó nada por lo que luchar”.

En Atom, el cura del circuito cerrado desapareció, y se instaló un reluciente gimnasio de Reebok, con camas de rayos UVA y filas de máquinas elípticas, un paraíso de cuidados personales en un país en el que las estadísticas siempre las habían dominado el vodka y el tabaco. La escuela primaria de Atom había abandonado muchos de sus programas experimentales (y a su director, un librepensador), para adoptar un plan de estudios agobiante, diseñado para construir triunfadores. Mi microcosmos se había dispersado. Algunos se habían ido a Canadá, o Israel, o Estados Unidos. Un antiguo miembro del aparato de la Liga Juvenil Comunista, que había sido de los más oficialistas durante las reuniones del complejo residencial en los primeros tiempos, había encontrado su vocación en el cínico mundo del tráfico de armas.

Igor, el fabricante de cajas fuertes, y su mujer, Tanya, se habían esforzado en aprender la forma de hacer negocios en un país que no sabía hacerlos. Su empresa creció y prosperó. Se mudaron a un apartamento mayor y dejaron el de Atom a una de sus hijas y su yerno. Igor tenía un Mercedes todoterreno. Pero no se sentían cómodos con el consumismo embrutecedor y la corrupción que les rodeaban. Su gran consuelo era que sus dos hijas habían preferido desarrollar su talento cultural en vez de dejarse llevar por la ambición comercial: Maria como pintora de iconos religiosos y Katya como pianista clásica.

Avanzamos una década más. Cuando decenas de miles de manifestantes salieron a las calles de Moscú este mes para protestar contra unas elecciones parlamentarias sospechosas y el estilo autoritario de Putin, los informativos lo calificaron de revuelta de la clase media. Lo primero que pensé fue en buscar a Igor, que había sido mi modelo de recién llegado a la clase media.

Tanya y él viven hoy en Londres. Después de 20 años de luchar contra la palabrería burocrática, la corrupción y unos empleados que no pensaban más que en sus propios derechos, Igor se rindió, vendió su empresa, abandonó Rusia y, a los 55 años, está haciendo un máster de diseño. La política y los políticos no le inspiran mucha confianza, nunca se la inspiraron, pero ha visto las manifestaciones de Moscú en Internet y se siente satisfecho. En las masas de manifestantes, junto a algunos intransigentes que desean volver al despotismo y algunos liberales que han visto reanimadas sus esperanzas de hace 20 años, Igor vio algo que le enorgulleció: jóvenes profesionales, con pinta de normalniye lyudi. Entre ellos, me dijo, estaba su hija Maria.

Un periodista ruso les ha llamado “los nuevos indignados”. Son urbanitas treintañeros bien situados, con la edad suficiente para haber visto el mundo exterior, demasiado jóvenes para echar de menos el cómodo conformismo de la experiencia soviética y para tener miedo. Se sienten engañados e insultados por Putin y su divina designación. Creen que la gente normal merece dirigentes normales.

Resulta que Rusia sí acabó cultivando una clase media, pero eso no fue suficiente para que se desarrollara una democracia. Para eso, hace falta una generación que sea inocente desde el principio. Borya, el profesor desencantado de My Perestroika, le dijo al director el otro día que él no había ido a las últimas manifestaciones, pero sus alumnos sí.

Da la impresión de que Putin no entiende nada porque se lo impide su desdén: desprecia a los manifestantes y dice que son instrumentos de Estados Unidos, se ríe de que los lazos blancos que llevaban parecían “condones”. (El sábado pasado, cuando las masas regresaron a la calle con una actitud todavía más decidida, los inevitables carteles de protesta mostraban dibujos de Putin envuelto en un condón gigante).

Todavía es difícil ver una alternativa clara a Putin. Entre los candidatos hay un oligarca multimillonario que es el dueño mayoritario de los New Jersey Nets, el desilusionado exministro de finanzas de Putin, varios rostros conocidos de hace 20 años, comunistas, ultranacionalistas, reformistas. Sin un líder de consenso en la oposición, lo normal es que Putin vuelva a ganar. Pero la hija de Igor y los alumnos de Borya, los hijos de la generación de Putin, son la luz al final del largo túnel soviético. Tal vez la lección para las demás democracias que están naciendo en el mundo es que hace falta tiempo: se puede liberar a la gente del sistema, pero el sistema sigue arraigado dentro de la gente.

Watching an authoritarian regime disintegrate is like watching an episode of the American television series House, MD. Someone who was enjoying an active lifestyle at the beginning of the series is experiencing multiple organ failure 15 minutes later, with the doctors frantically trying to figure out why, and which vital organ is going to go next.

A friend sent me a link to a programme broadcast on Russian national television recently (the link was to a YouTube clip, since most people I know do not have actual working television sets – the habit of watching TV has quietly died among the educated class here over the last 10 years). For over 10 minutes it made fun, crudely and openly, of Vladimir Putin’s annual televised Q&A session. “What do you make of this?” my friend wrote. “Is this fake?” It was not fake. And what I made of it is that television, the most vital of organs in a state like Russia, is failing.

NTV, the channel on which the show was broadcast, is owned by the state gas monopoly, Gazprom, which has a large press holding. Technically, the channel does not have to take orders from the Kremlin, but in the past 10 years (since it was wrested away from its founder) it just has. And now it is just going to stop.

The thing about harsh authoritarian regimes is it’s not laws, or courts, or the rigid government hierarchy that makes them run. It is fear. And once the fear is taken out of the equation – suddenly, for the vanishing of fear is always sudden – it becomes clear that these courts, laws and hierarchies do not work. Everything just starts falling apart.

That is what happened here 20 years ago: institutions just stopped taking orders from the Kremlin. The media stopped fearing the censors who still sat in their offices at every media outlet. The police stopped applying absurd regulations, enabling the birth of private enterprise. Ultimately, the heads of the Soviet Union’s 15 constituent republics lost their fear – and the empire fell apart, in what by history’s standards was the blink of an eye.

In August 1991, when Communist party hardliners tried to wrest back power, fear was the magic component they lacked. Some people got scared, to be sure – but enough did not. Radio journalists continued reporting on the coup and finding ways to broadcast even when their signal was repeatedly cut off and their offices were invaded by special forces. Print journalists from several newspapers that had been shut down got together to put out a joint publication they called the Common Newspaper. And ordinary people, including college students, professionals, and former army military men, flooded into the streets to protect the Moscow white house where Boris Yeltsin sat, personifying democracy.

The Moscow mayor and many other local officials were not frightened by the hardliners, and so refused to obey their decrees. Instead of being paralysed by fear, institutions just kept marching on as usual: the airports worked, the phones did not get shut down, people could get from place to place and communicate with one another. Finally, key generals did not obey the hardliners’ orders, forcing them to retreat in disgrace. In the end it was they who were scared.

Right now Putin is scrambling, planting his own hardliners in key positions. He has appointed his old friend, the FSB general Sergei Ivanov, as chief of the president’s staff – even though Putin has not yet been officially re-elected president. He brought back Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s odiously aggressive nationalist envoy to Nato, to serve in his cabinet in Moscow. In the coming days, he is likely to make more appointments that will show that his is a harsh, nationalist, authoritarian government. He is doing this because he is scared – and he desperately wants to bring back the fear that has enabled his rule for the last 12 years.

But Putin’s own media is already failing him. Some of his closest aides are sending out friendly signals to the protesters. They have lost the fear, and that means the whole edifice will come tumbling down. That process is unstoppable: Dr House will not come to the rescue.

Twenty years ago, Mikhail S. Gorbachev announced the end of a huge global experiment. After seven decades, the Soviet Union would be dismantled, its 15 republics becoming independent countries, and capitalism replacing the planned Soviet economy. Lenin’s embalmed corpse was left undisturbed in the Red Square mausoleum in Moscow, but the cause for which he led the October 1917 revolution no longer held the affection of hundreds of millions of Russians and millions more around the world.

For two decades since, the Russian people have largely endured in silence the oppressive and corrupt system of power that ensued — until blatant irregularities in parliamentary elections earlier this month sent an estimated 50,000 people out in protest. These protesters have planned what is expected to be the biggest demonstration since the fall of Communism for Saturday in Moscow. Vladimir V. Putin, the once and future president, is at last facing trouble from the streets.

The terminal crisis of Communism, by contrast, was a quiet affair. The end of the Soviet Union was revolutionary, but it did not involve a crowd storming the walls of the Kremlin, an attack on the K.G.B. headquarters or calling up the Moscow army garrisons. Indeed the final days of the Communist era were remarkable for the low intensity of political activity of any kind.

On national television, Mr. Gorbachev put on a brave face: “We’re now living in a new world,” he said during a Dec. 25, 1991, broadcast of his resignation speech. “An end has been put to the cold war and to the arms race, as well as to the mad militarization of the country.” But he could not disguise his regret that the Soviet order was about to be taken apart.

Mr. Gorbachev was paying the price for his failures. The economic laws he introduced in 1988 had weakened the huge state sector without allowing private enterprise to emerge. He had irritated the country’s dominant institutions — the Communist Party, the K.G.B. and the military — but had merely trimmed their capacity to retaliate. By widening freedoms of expression, moreover, he inadvertently encouraged radicals to denounce Communism, despite his reforms.

Mr. Gorbachev had complacently assumed that reform would release the energies of “the Soviet people.” But the truth was that no such people existed. The Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians pressed for independent statehood and chose their own Baltic patriots to lead them. The Georgians in 1990 elected a wild nationalist as president. Throughout the western and southeastern borderlands of the Soviet Union, the disintegration proceeded apace.

In August 1991, while Mr. Gorbachev vacationed in Crimea, his subordinates acted to halt his reforms by staging a coup. But the plotters overlooked the need to apprehend Boris N. Yeltsin, an ex-Communist radical who had been elected president of the Russian republic two months earlier. Mr. Yeltsin raced to the Russian White House in central Moscow. Standing atop a tank, he defiantly denounced the plotters. The coup was aborted, and when Mr. Gorbachev returned from house arrest, it was Mr. Yeltsin who appeared the hero. Yet Yeltsin felt he couldn’t consolidate his personal supremacy unless he broke up the Soviet Union and governed Russia as a separate state. He and his supporters saw Russia as a slumbering giant with a future of enormous potential if the encumbrance of the other Soviet republics was removed. He saw Communism as a dead end and a totalitarian nightmare. And unlike Mr. Gorbachev, he was willing to say this openly and without equivocation.

His opportunity for action arose on Dec. 1, 1991, when Ukrainians voted to break away from the Soviet Union. Without Ukraine, it was clear, the Soviet Union would face further secessionist demands. Mr. Yeltsin met quietly with the presidents of Ukraine and Belarus and came to an agreement to declare the Soviet Union abolished.

Mr. Gorbachev had no choice but to agree, and the vengeful Mr. Yeltsin unceremoniously bundled him out of the Kremlin. The Russian people, it turned out, preferred to watch politicians on television rather than become active participants in the country’s transformation. They had long been cynical about Communist leaders, and the trauma of the arrests and executions during Stalin’s Great Terror of the late 1930s had made them wary about taking part in politics.

Although thousands of young Russians had joined Mr. Yeltsin in defying the coup plotters in August 1991, civic activism declined as conditions worsened. As state enterprises underwent privatization, workers feared unemployment and resisted calls to go on strike. Russia’s manufacturing sector collapsed; only the petrochemical, gold and timber sectors successfully weathered the storms of capitalist development. A few businessmen became super-rich by exploiting legal loopholes and often using fraudulent and violent methods. Most citizens of post-Communist Russia were too exhausted to do more than grumble.

Public protest against the Kremlin became more difficult under Mr. Putin. Elected to the presidency in 2000, and now serving as prime minister, he has used ballot-box fraud, disqualification of rival political candidates and control of national television to stay in power. Although he gained popularity for bringing stability, his own administration is now attracting growing hostility.

Most Russians are sick of the corruption, misrule and poverty that plague their country while the Kremlin elite feasts on the profits from oil and gas exports — and who can blame them? At the turn of the millennium, 40 percent of the Russian people were living below the United Nations-defined poverty line. Rising oil prices have made poverty decline to some extent, but Mr. Putin has made no effort to eradicate it altogether.

The opposition, having suffered from years of harassment at Mr. Putin’s hands, has not yet succeeded in taking advantage of today’s unstable situation. But the recent outburst of public protest has flummoxed Mr. Putin, as he finds that his authoritarian government lacks the pressure valves that allow liberal democracies to anticipate and alleviate expressions of discontent.

Mr. Putin can no longer take his supremacy for granted. It is not yet a revolutionary situation. After all, Mr. Putin, like Mr. Yeltsin before him, can count on the money and pork-barrel politics needed to win the presidency next year; and he has no qualms about letting the security agencies use force.

But Russians, having sleepwalked away from Communism, are awakening to the idea that if they want democracy and social justice, they need to engage in active struggle. Quiescent 20 years ago during Soviet Communism’s final days, they may at last be about to stand up for their rights.

“I came, I falsified, I won” read an ironic poster with an image of Julius Caesar that I saw in the hands of a demonstrator who had come out to protest the rigging of the recent parliamentary elections. And there were tens of thousands of such demonstrators.

Incredible in scale, the mass demonstration last Saturday on Moscow’s Bolotnaya Square, within sight of the Kremlin, can be called, without exaggeration, the Bolotnaya Revolution. It’s not just the name of the square (boloto means swamp in Russian). The fact is that for some years now we have been in a political swamp.

A swamp, of course, is better than the Gulag, but you still want to get out of it. And the weather on Saturday was distinctly swampy: Heaven and earth merged into a single gray slush of rain and snow. Some suspected that the government, in control also of the weather, had thrown a fog over the city. But that did not prevent the holding of an event that summed up popular indignation.

The free Internet emerged as the main opposition leader; it was the Web that summoned people to the rally. The Moskva River embankment filled with a greater crowd than Moscow has known in the entire period of Putin’s rule — about 30,000. If we add to this the protests in St. Petersburg and other cities, there may have been twice that many demonstrating that day.

What we had was not an “opposition” rally, but a powerful national gathering, and it presented the authorities with concrete revolutionary demands. What else would you call this, when a vast crowd, waving banners of many different political movements, whistled and applauded so loudly that their echoes bounced off the Kremlin walls to approve resolutions demanding new elections to the State Duma, the immediate release of political prisoners and allowing all opposition parties to participate in open, fair elections?

The authorities were given two weeks to respond. The demonstrators promised to be back on Dec. 24, in greater numbers.

One speaker labeled as “disgusting” the official claims that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had helped organize the demonstrations, purportedly sending out text messages to all the protesters. The crowd laughed.

There were other humorous moments. The rally — which was addressed by well-known journalists, TV presenters, writers and politicians — opened with a provocative song, “Our madhouse is voting for Putin,” a clear suggestion that the authorities had done everything to possible to get even the most passive layers of the population out to vote for them.

There was a sense at the demonstration that people had lost fear. It was gone, along with blind respect for the top leaders. There was also the sense that we were present at the birth of Russian civil society, which, not yet fully born, was already celebrating. Instead of some abstract summons to freedom, it responsibly assumed its purpose: to render the government accountable to its will.

On the calendar, it so happened that the revolutionary year of 2011, after sweeping through many countries, was concluding with a grand fete in a Moscow wrapped in festive Christmas decorations.

The Moscow police deserve credit. No one was beaten, no one was detained, as usually happens. Demonstrators congratulated the police, offered them flowers and invited them to join the people. A bit more, and everyone would have burst into tears. The demonstrators were sober, firm, of various ages, though mostly young. No one was carted away in an ambulance.

Yet as soon as the crowds went home, the authorities announced that the election results would not be reviewed, and the chief election official would not be sacked. Pro-Kremlin youth organizations had already declared their readiness to bring 17,000 “loyal” citizens out into the streets. I don’t know where they got so precise a figure, but usually these “volunteers” are brought in by buses from other cities, and they welcome the chance to visit our beautiful city. Finally, on the day after the demonstration, President Dmitri Medvedev pronounced his disagreement with the slogans of the demonstrators.

Still, I would not wish a harsh political confrontation on my country, and even less a virtual civil war. The time has come for dialogue. On the side of the opposition, what we witnessed on Bolotnaya Square was not radical Bolsheviks, but a reasonable program for a review of our system of governance.

Needless to say, the authorities have made not a few mistakes of late. Why did Putin and Medvedev have to swap their jobs so publicly and with such enthusiastic smiles, thus angering and confusing their countrymen? Why such obvious election fraud?

Our people are, of course, patient, not as hotblooded as, say, Italians, but even in our northern land there are limits. Dozing peacefully, despite a hard life, people suddenly awoke and opened their eyes. Where will they now look?

The people on the Bolotnaya were from the most diverse camps: liberals to nationalists, social democrats to communists. This was a somewhat volatile political cocktail, and the government side is also not homogeneous. After Saturday’s demonstrations, the ruling elites will start to ferment: To what degree and in what ways should they respond to or ignore public opinion? Should they open up to the public or erect barricades?

Each of us, from Putin to the students, now has something to ponder. Above all, do not repeat the bloody mistakes of 20th century Russia. I hope there is sufficient intelligence and historical memory in Russia for that.

Nearly three years after the U.S.-Russia “reset” was announced in February 2009, the fragility of relations between Moscow and Washington is on full display. Even though the two countries have deepened their collaboration in a number of key areas — particularly in facilitating the NATO mission in Afghanistan — it seems that old habits of suspicion and recrimination die hard.

Thus, when Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton branded Russia’s recent State Duma elections as unfree and unfair — both preempting and exceeding the assessment of the O.S.C.E. observer mission in which the United States participated — she in effect denied the legitimacy of the Russian government that is ostensibly our partner in the U.S.-Russia “reset.”

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s sharp response — and President Dmitri Medvedev’s threat to target U.S. missile-defense installations in Europe with nuclear weapons — has raised concerns that U.S.-Russia relations could again deteriorate to pre-reset levels, or worse.

Certainly, change is in the air: Tens of thousands on the streets of Moscow and other Russian cities are demanding a recount of the Dec. 4 election and an end to the authorities’ monopoly on power. But what has not changed is the centrality of U.S.-Russia cooperation to addressing urgent U.S. national interests, including advancing nuclear arms control and nonproliferation, combating terrorism and drug trafficking, and managing the drawdown of NATO forces while maintaining security in Afghanistan and Central Asia.

Unfortunately, the romance of change has swept many in Washington off their feet, and some have forgotten what it takes to keep the underlying U.S.-Russia relationship strong and stable.

Mutual respect and mutual legitimacy are key to productive relations. Taken by itself, Clinton’s frank assessment of the Duma elections was not wrong. The problem is the sensitivities it provoked on the Russian side.

It should be no surprise that Russians, including not just Putin but many of those protesters calling for his ouster, reject the notion that Americans should sit in judgment of Russian domestic politics. They feel this way whatever the issue de jure of American outrage: Electoral transparency, rule of law and human rights are the usual suspects.

The problem is not that Americans have these concerns. Whether Russians like it or not, U.S. representations about human rights and democracy are part and parcel of the bilateral relationship. But it is the way in which such concerns are raised and responded to that poses a danger to preserving, sustaining and even extending cooperation on issues that matter to both sides. A Russian government that feels that its U.S. counterpart is secretly rooting for its overthrow is not going to offer sustained cooperation in the security and economic dimensions of the relationship.

In turn, the Russian side needs to understand how its statements and actions — both in terms of its domestic policy as well as its relationships with its neighbors — can make it difficult for Americans who support closer engagement with Moscow to mount a full-throated defense of the reset.

The Obama and Medvedev administrations have taken steps to formalize the basis for the relationship, notably via the Bilateral Presidential Commission, which links U.S. departments and Russian ministries in work groups ranging from clean energy cooperation to counterterrorism. But it is essential to turn this commission from an Obama-Medvedev initiative that may die once one or both of its principals leaves office into a permanent intergovernmental body that can continue its work as presidents come and go.

The potential of domestic political debates to precipitate crises for the relationship must also be checked. In Washington, the reset is identified with Obama, which has meant that most Republicans — and even many Democrats — refuse to take responsibility for its success. In Moscow, anti-Western nationalists, who gained seats in the Duma in the elections, continue to see reset as a fig leaf for continued U.S. bullying.

We should now broaden the dialogue so that people on both sides, even those who are the most skeptical — and usually also the most ignorant — of the other have the ability to meet and engage.

This process could be helped along by a more deliberate public relations strategy for the reset. Right now, the public narrative is one of disappointed expectations and mutual suspicion. Instead, the focus should be on getting the publics in both countries to understand the benefits of cooperation for both sides.

Russia’s latest post-election upheaval combined with America’s pre-election politicking threaten to amplify normal differences of opinion to crisis levels. The danger if this destroys the reset is that the damage may be irreparable.

Instead of permitting this slow motion disaster to occur, Moscow and Washington must now make a concerted effort to consolidate the gains of the past three years and build fuller ties between citizens, political parties and bureaucracies. Old habits may die hard, but with less fear and more trust in the air they will soon breathe their last.

Los grandes acontecimientos avanzan con pies de paloma, señalaba Nietzsche. ¿Por qué son tan silenciosos, si no es porque atacan nuestros prejuicios y denuncian nuestras miopías? Así ha sucedido con las elecciones rusas de este 4 de diciembre de 2011. La bofetada magistral que infligen al partido presidencial da inicio al declive de una apariencia (“imitación”, dicen los disidentes) de democracia y al fracaso de las ilusiones que ha alimentado.

Y, sin embargo, el año debía de terminar en apoteosis para el número uno de Rusia. Su estrella brillaba en lo más alto. Había conseguido los Juegos Olímpicos, la Copa del Mundo de fútbol, estrellas hollywoodienses y francesas debidamente remuneradas corrían a celebrar su cumpleaños, el mundo de las lentejuelas y de los poderosos sonreía al petrozar. La apertura otoñal del gasoducto del Báltico con dirección a Alemania coronaba su control casi absoluto de los recursos energéticos de la Unión Europea. Merkel, Fillon y Medvédev habían saludado juntos ese dominio; un eje Moscú-Berlín-París (en ese orden de prelación), como subraya Immanuel Wallenstein, profesor de geopolítica en Yale.

Golpe doble: Putin se designaba “candidato” elegido de oficio a las presidenciales de 2012, con la perspectiva asegurada de conservar el Kremlin hasta 2024 y de alcanzar un récord de longevidad soviética. Golpe triple: el Premio Confucio. Este contra-premio Nobel de la Paz madurado por la China comunista para fastidiar a Liu Xiabo (laureado con el verdadero Premio Nobel, que sigue encarcelado), ha sido concedido este año al amigo ruso. Los “considerandos” le consagran (sic) héroe de la resistencia a las intervenciones occidentales en Libia, campeón del veto a toda sanción de la ONU a su cómplice de asesinatos en masa, Assad el sirio, last but not least: modelo de la lucha “antiterrorista”, versión poscomunista, es decir, más de 200.000 chechenos muertos sobre una población de menos de un millón de habitantes… Incontestado en Europa, autócrata permanente en Moscú, matarife en el Cáucaso, compadre planetario (con los chinos) de todos los déspotas de turno, desde Irán a Corea del Norte, Vladímir Vladimirovich leía su porvenir de color rosa.

Antes del desafío de las elecciones del 4 de diciembre, el proyecto “eurasiático” del Kremlin parecía un vencedor infalible. Contra la Alianza atlántica, designada siempre enemigo número uno de la sacrosanta Rusia, contra la “ilusión” de los derechos del hombre, el nuevo bloque Confucio Pekín-Moscú se mostraba estable y seguro de sí. El Kremlin erizaba de misiles sus fronteras con Europa, hacía crujir a sus inmediatos vecinos,enterraba la democracia en Ucrania y ocupaba el 20% de Georgia… Ante la crisis económico-política que asuela el Occidente democrático, he ahí un modelo apto para seducir a los poderosos y a los hombres de orden de los cinco continentes. El axioma de los antiguos miembros del KGB (Gestapo soviética) parecía verificarse: el fin del imperio soviético -Putin dice “la mayor catástrofe geopolítica del siglo XX”- no era el fin de la historia, sino un accidente reversible. El “poder vertical” a la rusa y el “despotismo ilustrado” de tipo chino prometían triunfar sobre el desbarajuste democrático. Tras las huellas de la gran crisis de 1929, unas dictaduras policiales y arrogantes, a la vez rivales y aliadas, decidieron las desgracias del mundo. ¿Bis repetitat?

Al oeste, entre nosotros, gran cantidad de expertos y de responsables se engañan acerca de la solidaridad, del poderío, incluso de la sabiduría de los autócratas postsoviéticos y posmaoístas. ¿No iríamos a esperar que salvasen al euro gratuitamente y con toda benevolencia? ¡Venga ya!

El pánico inicial suscitado por las revueltas de la primavera árabe indica hasta qué punto los potentados “eurasiáticos” están menos seguros que nosotros de la perennidad de su poder. En la red china toda evocación del jazmín está tachada. ¿Por qué? Túnez no es Pekín, ni la pequeñez tunecina es comparable con la inmensidad china. El mismo desconcierto que en Moscú, donde la menor contestación -Putin silbado por la multitud en un ring- evoca el Apocalipsis, y acarrea el redoblamiento inmediato de la censura.

A pesar del bloqueo de las redes sociales, de la interferencia de los blogs, de los ataques de los hackers a las páginas independientes, a pesar de los telediarios unívocos, a pesar del insolente relleno de las urnas, de la falsificación de los recuentos electorales, de las intimidaciones a todos los niveles, a pesar de la orden dada a los gobernadores de obtener, cueste lo que cueste, un 65% de votos “correctos”, el partido oficial Rusia Unida se ha visto degradado como “partido de los ladrones y los tramposos”.

Los rusos no sabrían significar mejor que su Estado carece de crédito (tramposos) y de ley (ladrones). Lo saben, lo viven. ¿Quién se puede creer que el 98% de los chechenos hayan votado libremente por sus asesinos?

La corrupción reina como dueña y señora, desde lo más alto a lo más bajo, y relega a la gran Rusia al rango de Somalia, tras Zimbabue, en la escala publicada por Transparency International. En 2011, el dinero de la corrupción se evalúa en 300.000 millones de dólares (30.000 millones los años precedentes): los bolsillos de los que lucen galones son insaciables. Diez años de Putin, 10 años de predadores serviles, han confirmado el diagnóstico de Mijaíl Jodorkovski, antiguo oligarca y hoy prisionero político ad infinitum por haber descubierto que el zar estaba desnudo, incapaz y podrido. ¿Qué dice? Que la corrupción universalizada es un peligro peor que el nuclear.

El enorme maná de gas y petróleo no ha traído consigo la reindustrialización de Rusia. Una vez enjugado con tacañería el consumo de las clases medias, las inmensas fortunas se invierten fuera de las fronteras. Todo pasa como si el 50% de la población se compusiera de bocas inútiles, destinadas al malestar y a la miseria, condenadas a padecer la embriaguez, la prostitución y las enfermedades, con la tuberculosis y el sida a la cabeza, y no atendidas por falta de medios.

¿Adónde va a parar el fabuloso tesoro no invertido en Rusia? Viene donde nosotros. A manos de los déspotas y de los oligarcas a su servicio: todo un formidable poder nocivo. La corrupción se nos revela como una enfermedad contagiosa y el putinismo como una viruela sin fronteras… Atrevámonos a mirar a la cara al mal ruso, en ello está en juego nuestro futuro. Sin libertad de examen ni de crítica, sin poder de información y de expresión que escapen a la autoridad de las autoridades no hay límites al poder de destrucción de la corrupción posmoderna. La cuestión del siglo XX fue: totalitarismo o democracia. La cuestión de hoy es: democracia o corrupción. Los rusos empiezan a plantearla. Y a nosotros nos corresponde escucharles.

[Versión en francés]

In September 1991, President George H.W. Bush announced a series of sweeping measures fundamentally reshaping the American nuclear arsenal. One of them called for all U.S. ground-force tactical nuclear weaponsto be returned from overseas bases and dismantled. Similarly, all tactical nuclear weapons on surface ships and attack submarines, as well as those associated with land-based naval aircraft, were to be withdrawn.

Eight days later, President Mikhail Gorbachev reciprocated, declaring that similar steps would be taken for Soviet nuclear forces.

As a result of these so-called Presidential Nuclear Initiatives, or P.N.I.’s, thousands of nuclear weapons on both sides were ultimately taken out of service and in some cases eliminated altogether — all based on unilateral, parallel actions, and all without an arms control treaty.

Presidents Bush and Gorbachev succeeded in bypassing the time-consuming treaty process largely because of the momentous changes taking place at the time. A year earlier, Germany had been reunited and the Warsaw Pact dissolved. The month before the P.N.I.’s were announced, Soviet hard-liners had attempted a coup against the Gorbachev regime, raising serious questions about who was really in charge of the country and its vast nuclear weapons stockpile. Crises create opportunities for bold action; both presidents rightly seized the moment.

Now, 20 years later, the subject of reducing tactical nuclear weapons has again come to the fore. Signing the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in April 2010, President Obama announced that the United States intended to pursue further reductions in all categories of nuclear weapons — including, for the first time, tactical and nondeployed warheads. Voting to approve the treaty, the U.S. Senate called for negotiations with Russia to address the disparity in U.S. and Russian tactical nuclear weapons and to secure and reduce those weapons in a verifiable manner.

The specific size of that disparity is a matter of debate. Neither the United States nor Russia has publicly disclosed the number and locations of the tactical nuclear weapons they possess.

Unofficial estimates vary widely. The London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies credits the United States with 500 operational warheads, with fewer than half of those deployed in Europe. The 2009 report of the bipartisan U.S. Strategic Posture Commission cited reports that Russia has 3,800 operational tactical nuclear warheads, plus numerous reserves. Although others offer different estimates, Russian weapons clearly outnumber U.S. weapons by an overwhelming margin.

As the United States and Russia continue to reduce long-range, strategic nuclear weapons to increasingly lower levels, this disparity in tactical nuclear weapons looms larger, with potentially serious implications for the overall nuclear balance between the two countries and the continued efficacy of the U.S. nuclear umbrella for its allies.

Moreover, Russian military doctrine and public statements by senior Russian officers suggest that Moscow places high value on a large tactical nuclear force for deterrence and potential escalation in military conflicts.

Negotiating a reduction in tactical and nondeployed nuclear weapons won’t be easy. There are serious technical challenges related to verifying compliance, and U.S.-Russian differences on a range of strategic issues, especially missile defenses, cloud the prospects for “getting to yes” in formal negotiations anytime soon.

There is, however, some unfinished business concerning the 20 year-old P.N.I.’s that both governments could take up now to help lay the foundation for future talks.

The U.S. government has been quite open about the steps taken to implement the P.N.I.’s. The day after Bush’s announcement, the Pentagon provided a very detailed account of the number and types of American tactical nuclear weapons deployed abroad and on ships. More recently, in May 2010, the United States made public the actual size of its nuclear weapons stockpile for each year since 1962, as well as the specific number of weapons dismantled annually since 1994.

The Russians have been far less forthcoming. As a result, serious questions have existed almost from the outset about Russian implementation of the P.N.I.’s, as well as the role of tactical nuclear weapons in their military strategy.

By way of contrast, the United States and Russia have grown accustomed to sharing considerable information about their longer-range strategic nuclear forces. For years, they have routinely exchanged and updated information on the disposition of retiring nuclear-capable bombers and missiles. Similar processes could be applied to the types and numbers of tactical nuclear systems affected by the P.N.I.’s. Lingering doubts about actual implementation would be reduced; the overall relationship would benefit from greater openness.

The next logical step would be for both countries to disclose, on a reciprocal basis, the location, types and numbers of tactical nuclear weapons that remain.

This should pose few problems for the United States and its allies; well-informed accounts of deployed American weapons have been around for years. But disclosing such data might prove difficult for Russia, given its penchant for secrecy and the political risks of confirming it does indeed possess a far greater number of these weapons.

If such difficulties can be overcome, these two steps would enhance transparency and mutual confidence. In the process, they could help pave the way to future negotiations on reducing both tactical and nondeployed nuclear weapons.

Les grands événements avancent à pas de colombe, remarquait Nietzsche. Pourquoi sont-ils si silencieux, sinon qu’ils froissent nos préjugés et accusent nos myopies ? Ainsi va-t-il des élections russes ce 4 décembre. La claque magistrale qu’elles infligent au parti présidentiel amorce le déclin d’une démocratie d’apparence (“imitation”, disent les dissidents) et la faillite des illusions qu’elle a nourries. La leçon magistrale des manifestations démocratiques de samedi, les plus grandes depuis 1991 et peut-être depuis février 1917, s’impose : Poutine, après Kadhafi, Ben Ali, Moubarak ou Assad, titube.

Pourtant, l’année devait finir en apothéose pour le numéro un de Russie. Son étoile brillait au plus haut. Il avait décroché les Jeux olympiques, la Coupe du monde de foot, des stars hollywoodiennes et françaises dûment rémunérées se pressaient à son anniversaire, le monde des paillettes et des puissants souriait au pétrotsar. L’ouverture automnale du gazoduc de la Baltique en direct vers l’Allemagne couronnait son contrôle quasi absolu des ressources énergétiques de l’Union européenne. Ensemble Merkel, Fillon et Medvedev avaient salué cette mainmise – un axe Moscou-Berlin-Paris (dans cet ordre de préséance), souligne Immanuel Wallerstein, professeur de géopolitique à Yale.

Coup double : Poutine se désignait “candidat” élu d’office à la présidentielle de 2012, avec la perspective assurée de garder le Kremlin jusqu’en 2024 et d’atteindre un record de longévité soviétique. Coup triple : le prix Confucius. Ce contre-prix Nobel de la paix, mitonné par la Chine communiste pour faire pièce à Liu Xiaobo (lauréat du Nobel en 2010 toujours incarcéré), est décerné cette année à l’Ami russe. Les attendus le sacrent (sic) héros de la résistance aux interventions occidentales en Libye, champion du veto face à toute sanction onusienne visant son complice ès assassinats de masse, Assad le Syrien, et, last but not least, parangon de la lutte “antiterroriste” version postcommuniste – soit plus de 200 000 Tchétchènes tués sur une population de moins d’un million d’habitants. Incontesté en Europe, autocrate permanent à Moscou, tueur au Caucase, coparrain planétaire (avec les Chinois) de tous les despotes du jour, de l’Iran à la Corée du Nord, Vladimir Vladimirovitch lisait son avenir en rose.

Avant le défi des élections du 4 décembre, le projet “eurasiatique” du Kremlin semblait vainqueur à tous les coups. Contre l’Alliance atlantique, toujours désignée ennemi numéro un de la sacro-sainte Russie, contre “l’illusion” des droits de l’homme, le nouveau “bloc Confucius” Pékin-Moscou paraissait stable et sûr de lui. Le Kremlin hérissait ses frontières avec l’Europe de missiles, croquait ses “voisins proches”, enterrait la démocratie en Ukraine et occupait 20 % de la Géorgie…

Face à la crise économico-politique qui ravage l’Occident démocratique, voilà un modèle propre à séduire possédants et hommes d’ordre des cinq continents. L’axiome des anciens du KGB (Gestapo soviétique) semblait se vérifier: la fin de l’empire soviétique – Poutine dit : “La plus grande catastrophe géopolitique du XX^e siècle” – n’était pas la fin de l’Histoire, mais un accident réversible. La “verticale du pouvoir” à la russe et le “despotisme éclairé” façon chinoise promettaient de l’emporter sur la pagaille démocratique. Dans le sillage de la grande crise de 1929, des dictatures policières et arrogantes, à la fois rivales et alliées, décidèrent des malheurs du monde. Bis repetita non placent.

A l’Ouest, chez nous, quantité d’experts et de responsables s’abusent sur la solidarité, la puissance, voire la sagesse des autocrates postsoviétiques et postmaoïstes. N’allions-nous pas espérer qu’ils sauveraient l’euro gratuitement et en toute bienveillance? Allons donc ! Le début de panique suscité par les révoltes du “printemps arabe” indique combien les potentats “eurasiatiques” sont moins assurés que nous de la pérennité de leur pouvoir. Sur le Net chinois, toute évocation du jasmin est biffée. Pourquoi ? Tunis n’est pas Pékin ni la petite Tunisie l’immensité chinoise ! Même désarroi à Moscou, où la moindre contestation – Poutine sur un ring sifflé par la foule – évoque l’apocalypse, entraînant illico un redoublement de censure.

Malgré le blocage des réseaux sociaux, le brouillage de la blogosphère, les attaques de hackeurs sur les sites indépendants, malgré les télés univoques, malgré le bourrage insolent des urnes, la falsification des bordereaux de comptage électoraux, les intimidations tous azimuts, malgré l’ordre intimé aux gouverneurs d’obtenir coûte que coûte 65 % de votes “corrects”, le parti officiel Russie unie se voit dégradé comme “parti des voleurs et des tricheurs”.

Les Russes ne sauraient mieux signifier que leur Etat est sans foi (tricheurs) ni loi (voleurs). Ils le savent, ils le vivent. A qui faire croire que 99,48 % des Tchétchènes aient voté “librement” pour leurs assassins ? La corruption règne en maître, du plus haut au plus bas, et relègue la grande Russie au rang de la Somalie, derrière le Zimbabwe, sur l’échelle dressée par Transparency International. En 2011, l’argent de la corruption s’évalue à 300 milliards de dollars (30 milliards les années précédentes), les poches des galonnés sont insatiables. Dix ans de Poutine, dix ans de prédateurs serviles ont vérifié le diagnostic de Mikhaïl Khodorkovski, ancien oligarque, désormais prisonnier politique ad infinitum pour avoir découvert que le tsar était nu, incapable et pourri. Que dit-il? Que la corruption mondialisée est un danger pire que le nucléaire.

L’énorme manne pétro-gazière n’a pas entraîné la réindustrialisation de la Russie. Une fois la consommation des classes moyennes urbaines chichement épongée, les immenses fortunes s’investissent hors des frontières. Tout se passe comme si 50 % de la population se composait de bouches inutiles, vouées au mal-être et à la grande misère, condamnées à subir l’ivrognerie, la prostitution, les maladies (tuberculose et sida en tête), pas soignées faute de moyens.

Où va le fabuleux trésor non investi en Russie ? Il vient chez nous. Entre les mains des despotes et des oligarques à leur botte, voilà une formidable force de nuisance. La corruption s’avère une maladie contagieuse et le poutinisme une vérole sans frontières. Osons regarder en face le mal russe, il y va de notre avenir. Sans liberté d’examen et de critique, sans pouvoir d’information et d’expression échappant à l’autorité des autorités, il n’y a pas de limites au pouvoir de destruction de la corruption postmoderne.

La question du XX^e siècle fut : totalitarisme ou démocratie ? La question du jour est : démocratie ou corruption. Les Russes commencent à la poser. A nous de les entendre. Nul ne sait ce qu’il adviendra dans les mois qui viennent, pareille incertitude est déjà une victoire de la liberté. La Russie de Pouchkine n’est pas morte. Balaiera-t-elle la Russie de Poutine?

It began snowing in Moscow that year on Sept. 23 and it did not stop snowing until mid-April. The grayness of the weather matched the grayness of the waning years of Leonid Brezhnev’s era as Soviet premier.

Winter moved in and obliterated what was left of fall.

A darkness, all but impenetrable, fell over the city. When you looked out the windows of your apartment, you could see the snow flashing and dancing in the halo of the streetlights, but there was no joy to it.

I was there with my valiant wife and my young family, a total American completely out of place, lost in a hostile world and longing for a connection with anything vaguely spiritual.

It was the last place in the world one would expect to find the spirit of Christmas, in the depths of a winter so brutal it left alcoholics frozen where they fell, an officially godless place.

Gawd, I loved the Russians.

They were passionate, funny, vulgar, brilliant, inventive, sympatico and almost as dark as the weather. Most of the ones we ran into as foreigners you couldn’t trust in that era, but that was OK as long as you knew it. You could still have your moments with them.

I hated the government, what passed for communism (even the Russians knew it was not communism) and just about everything connected to it. This was an abiding, persistent hatred that burst into flame when I awakened and left smoldering embers of hatred in my head even as I was trying to fall asleep.

This feeling matured as Christmas approached.

I am the first to admit I am not a very determined Christian. At the same time, Roman Catholicism molded my young life. I knew the Christmas season the way an accountant knows numbers.

It was like getting a sweet kiss when you most needed it.

To me, the run-up of Advent with its solemnity and powerful messages were the best part of Catholicism and then, Ka-boom! There’s Jesus! Surrounded by gold and incense at midnight Mass with a full choir and glorious music, it was the best of birthday parties.

I needed that sweet kiss of Christmas in Moscow. I could not find it and I felt that year as though my soul were draining out of a hole in my shoe.

The Russians had a version of Christmas that the Orthodox Church celebrated in January, and it was customary among Soviets to celebrate the arrival of the New Year with an array of very Christmas-like events, including lighted trees full of ornaments. Grandfather Frost showed up with the Snow Maiden, on a sled pulled by three white horses. There were toys.

But with no Baby Jesus, it was a cheap imitation.

Imagine how it felt when I learned late in the month that there was a Catholic church in Moscow and it would be celebrating a midnight Mass. That wasn’t the kind of thing journalists did much talking about in the 1970s, going to Mass. No one even mentioned the place.

Where was the church?

St. Louis des Francais was at 12 Malaya Lubyanca. Lubyanca was the prison where the Committee on State Security did a lot of its slaughtering in the Stalin era, and where the KGB had its headquarters and interrogation center.

It was not actually a forbidden zone. It just felt like one.

It was a long walk.

The tiny church of St. Louis was obvious to anyone who knew the place. At that point, it sat down a street that was bordered on one side by a big hole where the Soviets were determined to eventually build something.

Being remarkably stupid, I couldn’t find it.

Behind the KGB headquarters, there was a sky-blue building with a sky-blue guard station with a young soldier with sky-blue shoulder boards indicating he worked for the KGB. I asked him where the church was. He pointed. My Russian friends later told me they could not believe I did this. It was like going to the headquarters of evil to ask the address of the headquarters of goodness.

I really needed to find that church.

I saw it way down an alley on the other side of the hole. I took the long walk around all the construction mess to reach it.

Being a Catholic church was not the best thing in Moscow, but St. Louis was under the protective wing of the French Embassy. Everyone assumed the KGB bugged the confessionals. They bugged everything else. Why not? Those in the know, I am told, asked for confessions outside of the building.

The parish was founded in 1789, with the church constructed in 1829. By the time I arrived, it was in disrepair but still offering daily Masses in a variety of languages for the diplomatic community and a smattering of floating Catholics attached to other interests (me, for example, a UPI correspondent).

Moscow was full of Polish people (Poland was still part of the evil empire in that era) and the Polish were great Catholics. They all came out for midnight Mass.

I was heading toward the church when a black Volga sedan came zipping down the alley toward me. I assumed it was the KGB and for reasons I could never understand, I was in deep trouble just for asking directions.

Like I said, stupid.

No. It was the emissary of the Russian Orthodox Church, dressed in spectacular black with a grand hat on his head and a big gold cross on a chain and a crozier in his hand. “God’s peace be with you,” he said to me.

It doesn’t get much more spiritual than that.

I walked into a collapsing building packed with people. There was a choir. In Polish, it started singing “Angels We Have Heard on High.”

Old women were making their way to the creche at the front of the church to pay their respects to the infant.

I started weeping when they started singing, and I didn’t stop until Mass was over. Apparently, weeping was not such an unusual experience in a Catholic church in Moscow on Christmas Eve, circa 1977.

I fit right in.

It was a long walk home to the comfort of my family and a good, cold time for reflection.

Christmas doesn’t happen outside, that was my conclusion. It’s packed inside of us as children and comes out only when we need it the most.

A few months before this week’s parliamentary elections, around 10 of us gathered in a small room at the Andrei Sakharov Museum and Public Center, a place meant to honor freedom of thought, a place that no one visits.

Boris Nemtsov was there, a former deputy prime minister whose opposition party was one of the many excluded from the elections. And so was Viktor Shenderovich, who hosted a popular satirical TV show and now performs only rarely in tiny clubs. There were entrepreneurs with no business opportunities and lawyers kept from the courtroom. And then there was me: a disenchanted former political reporter.

During the many years of Vladimir V. Putin’s rule, we lost our jobs and so much more. So our luckless gang had met to ponder what to do about the coming elections, all too aware that nothing could be done about them.

This is how parliamentary elections work in Russia: Mr. Putin’s party, United Russia, faces off against collaborating parties — which would never dare to criticize him. And the real opposition parties are banned. But one cannot simply vote against every party involved. Nor is there any use in boycotting, because the election would be considered legitimate even if no one but the prime minister and president showed up.

The only solution, we decided, was irreverent protest. And so we came up with a cartoon pig called Nah-Nah, a name that, in Russian, evokes an unprintable version of “get lost!” — an expletive for what we’d like to say to those in power. We made posters and animated cartoons depicting Nah-Nah at the polls, destroying the ballot. He would check the box for every party running and draw an X across the ballot. He would do this not in hopes of changing anything, but to illustrate how nauseating these pretend elections are. We posted them online and called on real voters to follow Nah-Nah’s lead. Mostly, we wanted to laugh and misbehave a little, even as United Russia kept its throne.

At the same time, a young activist and very well-known blogger, Aleksei Navalny, offered a different protest strategy for the elections. He proposed voting for any of the collaborating parties in order to avoid casting a vote for United Russia — for the Communists, for A Just Russia, for Yabloko.

These two protests — Nah-Nah and Navalny — gained attention, and for the first time in the history of the anti-Putin movement, there was a real debate about methods, a conversation with substance and without enmity, taking place on the Internet, in cafes, in Moscow and the suburbs.

Mr. Navalny’s supporters argued that destroying the ballot would simply split the anti-Putin vote, giving United Russia a bigger victory.

“Nonsense!” Nah-Nah’s fans insisted. “Nothing depends on the vote. Our only option is protest.”

The Navalny faction thought there was hope for the collaborating parties. “If they could get enough seats in Parliament, you would see how quickly they would move away from Putin.”

The Nah-Nah enthusiasts disagreed. “The moment they get to Parliament, they will obey Putin like well-trained puppies.”

Though no one could convince anyone else, more and more people entered the conversation, more and more people abandoned the apathy that is the very foundation of the Putin government.

A few days before the election, I heard a rumor that United Russia would be satisfied with only a simple majority, as opposed to the two-thirds majority it has now — the party’s main concern is that the presidential election in March appear legitimate, so that Mr. Putin can replace Dmitri Medvedev, his underling and the current president, and stay in power until 2024. But in the end, when the government said that United Russia received half of the vote, most Russians knew the results were manipulated, and suspected the party got even less.

That is because voters, fueled by the debate between Nah-Nah and Navalny, came to the polls armed with cameras. There was footage of abuses and many accounts of corruption: witnesses said that the head of the Election Commission had thrown packaged ballots into a voting bin and that pro-Putin youth voted multiple times with fraudulent IDs; impossibly different results from incredibly similar polling stations have been posted online. And the government-controlled television stations said nothing.

On Monday, the day after the election, there was a protest in the center of Moscow; despite the rain, thousands assembled — a sight unseen since the time of Perestroika. The leaders of the Nah-Nah movement and Mr. Navalny’s supporters stood together. The police arrested nearly 300 people. Among them was one of the authors of the Nah-Nah strategy, Ilya Yashin, as well as Aleksei Navalny himself. They were held by the police all night, prevented from meeting with their lawyers. In the morning, they were brought to court and sentenced to 15 days for disobeying police orders and obstructing traffic, respectively.

An even larger protest is planned for Saturday. It seems that the government has decided to turn the two into heroes.

I sensed something was different when a good friend of mine, Katya Vladyshevskaya, the mother of a beautiful 4-year-old, called me a month ago and asked if becoming an election monitor made any sense. Well, yes, I said, why not, it should be a good thing.

But as we talked, I was struck by the very idea of a young person — not a journalist, not a civic activist, not one of the usual suspects, in other words — becoming actively interested in the electoral process.

It was not just talk. Katya actually became a monitor. She spent 15 hours on Sunday at a Moscow polling station, where she witnessed barefaced fraud by the station’s head and tried to lodge a formal complaint. She showed the officials the Russian electoral law and asking them to compare the number of people who voted with the number of ballots in the boxes. They responded by calling the police.

We waited outside the police station while she gave her account of the episode. They released her for lack of evidence — of her “misconduct.” That night she filed a complaint against the authorities. Katya told us she never thought she could be that angry.

Russians have been angry before. But I struggle to recall a time when my countrymen, especially the young, were so angry over a stolen vote. And the protest was not quietly smoldering, as it usually does; it broke out into the streets.

On Monday, the day after the elections, up to 10,000 people rallied on Chistye Prudy, a Moscow boulevard. More than 300 were detained by the police. On Tuesday night, a smaller crowd went out onto Triumphalnaya Square, and this time the police cracked down big-time: More than 560 were detained with demonstrative brutality and total disregard for the law. In St. Petersburg, after a similar demonstration, 300 people were detained.

The activist blogger Aleksei Navalny, 35, the young politician Ilya Yashin, 28, and many other leaders of the spontaneous protest activity were hastily sentenced to 15 days in jail for disobeying police officers. Navalny and Yashin denied any resistance to the authorities.

The early morning of Monday, when the voting results were announced, with their inflated figures for United Russia, the ruling party, has become a watershed. Even seasoned political activists did not expect the situation to explode — stuffed ballot boxes and dead souls voting are not new in Russia.

But on Monday we discovered that there is a limit to electoral fraud. In a broader sense, we discovered that there is a limit to political manipulation.

For years, the Kremlin’s political engineers have been suppressing bottom-up movements and creating top-down manageable structures. They have cemented full control over countrywide television channels, and their heavy censorship has created a wall between the silent, TV-watching majority and a vocal, Internet-savvy minority. Big-name news anchors have not even mentioned the protests or the crackdown.

The Kremlin controls the political system, the courts and the entire law-enforcement system, as well as regional finances and major industries. Obedient political parties and youth organizations are routinely used to put on shows of “grass-roots support.”

An immediate solution to the current crisis would be a new election in the regions that were especially affected by fraud. But Vladimir Putin sees any political concession as a sign of weakness.

Yet for all the Kremlin’s power, the ground is slipping out from under the system. The protests, still relatively modest in scale, may still wither under pressure. But the anger raised by Sunday’s vote will not go away. The Kremlin’s manipulative methods will not work as before. The arrests have even helped the opposition resolve its leadership problem. Navalny, who made a name as a fearless anti-corruption watchdog, has acquired a broader appeal. His blog has become a media outlet in its own right.

Even more importantly, people like Katya, the election monitor, have become engaged. Their age, the fact that they have no firsthand experience of life under a totalitarian regime, the explosive growth of social networks and other new media, have all come together to help them confront forces to which their elders had grown accustomed. The ubiquitous graft, the officials who openly confuse the state budget with their pockets, the cynical disregard for the public have definitely helped as well.

That said, one has to remember that the young people who have voiced their discontent are still a tiny minority in a vast country. There are other powerful social currents in Russian society. Olga Borovkova, the judge who sentenced Navalny and Yashin, is 26 years old. The many participants in the Kremlin-organized movements are still younger. The Putin decade has produced a whole layer of young people eager to turn the resources of the state to their advantage.

Putin has fine-tuned his political system to create rich benefits for the elites, who in turn use the proceeds to consolidate the political system and build a posh lifestyle outside Russia. These are attractive models.

Opinion polls (conducted before the elections) have consistently shown a widespread rentier mentality and a preference among young people for jobs at Gazprom and Rosneft, the state-owned natural-resources monopolies. These young people, officials and aspiring bosses, may well see the protesters as rivals or enemies meddling with their lucrative future.

It’s not just the rentier state-supporting party and disorganized, quixotic protesters who have collided in Moscow. Two world views and two images of the country’s future are at odds. There are no easy ways out of the deadlock the Russian society has found itself in.

Thanks to all those years of pretend politics and Potemkin party-building, Russia does not have a ready alternative to Putin’s party. But Putin and his party are no longer as powerful as they were before Dec. 4. Although a majority on paper, they can no longer act in the name of the people.

The next big test is expected at a mass protest rally on Saturday. The social networks have been actively spreading the word — and also instructing people on how to behave so as not to provoke the authorities, and how to behave if arrested. The possibility of mass arrests is high: The authorities have given a permit for 300 demonstrators, and many thousands are expected.

From my first day in office as NATO secretary general, I have made clear that NATO-Russia cooperation remains of strategic importance. We share common security interests and face common challenges. And since our NATO-Russia summit meeting in Lisbon a year ago, we have come a long way in tackling new threats with new thinking.

We are bringing stability to Afghanistan, and stemming the flood of narcotics out of the country — together. We are fighting terrorism in our cities and our airspaces — together. We are combating piracy off the Horn of Africa — together. This cooperation benefits all of us. At Lisbon, we also agreed to discuss pursuing missile defense cooperation.

The missile threat we face is grave and growing. Over 30 states are working on advanced missile technology. Some of them already have ballistic missiles that can be fitted with conventional warheads or with weapons of mass destruction. Some of our major cities are already in range. That is why at the Lisbon summit, NATO agreed to develop a missile defense capability to protect its population, territory and forces. That remains our position today. We owe it to our people to defend them.

Along with a prominent U.S. contribution, a number of allies have made significant announcements, including Turkey, Poland, Romania, Spain, the Netherlands and France. These national contributions will be brought together under a common NATO command and control system. Key elements of it have already been tested successfully. By the time of our summit meeting in Chicago in May, we expect initial components of the system to be in place.

NATO’s system is a strong demonstration of solidarity in action. It also shows the strength of the trans-Atlantic link between North America and Europe. Our 28 nations agree on the significance of the threat and the importance of working together to address it. And by cooperating within NATO, rather than as nations working alone, we deliver a far more effective system at a far lower price.

Our threat perceptions may currently differ, but Russia could also be threatened by ballistic missiles. So it makes sense for us to cooperate in defending against them, by building two separate systems with the same goal. It makes sense practically, militarily and politically. It would show once and for all that we can build security with each other, rather than against each other.

NATO and Russia have held many discussions on missile defense. We have made it clear that our missile defense system is not directed at Russia. It is designed to protect European nations in NATO against threats from outside Europe; it is a defensive system.

Allies and NATO as a whole have made three practical proposals to allay Russian concerns. First, we offered transparency on missile defense programs through exchanges at the NATO-Russia Council, which is our forum for political dialogue, and we issued a standing invitation to Russian experts to observe and analyze missile defense tests. Second, we proposed holding joint NATO-Russia theater missile defense exercises next year. And third, we suggested establishing two joint missile defense centers, one for sharing data and the other for supporting planning.

Russia has also said it needs legal guarantees that NATO missile defenses are not a threat. In fact, when NATO and Russia signed the NATO-Russia Founding Act in 1997, we agreed that we will refrain from the threat or use of force against each other. So the guarantee has been there for over a decade.

Some of President Dmitri Medvedev’s recent comments about NATO’s missile defense system reflect a misunderstanding of the system. As a result, Russia has suggested deploying missiles in areas neighboring the alliance. Such suggestions reflect the rhetoric of the past and are inconsistent with the strategic relationship NATO and Russia agreed to seek. I am, however, pleased that Medvedev has not closed the door on continued dialogue with NATO about missile defense.

Missile defense cooperation can radically change the way NATO and Russia look at each other. In the 21st century, confrontation is not a choice. The only real choice is cooperation.

December marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Soviet Union. It’s a fitting time, then, to take stock of what was achieved — and what failed — in Eurasia over the last two decades.

The Obama administration has tried to “reset” U.S. relations with Russia. But the recent threat by the Russian ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, to shut down the U.S. supply line to Afghanistan is a reminder of just how deep go the roots of anti-Americanism, and how Russia is increasingly looking away from the West.

It didn’t have to be that way. The multi-faceted collapse of the Soviet empire and its communist ideology was quick by historic yardsticks. From economic meltdown to “velvet revolutions” in the Eastern European satellites and to the break-away of independent republics was a matter of only a few years — 1989-1991.

The sad news is that the Soviet collapse did not bring a “bright future” to its people as many hoped at the time, East and West. Too many communist apparatchiks remained in power. The extirpation of faith, the corroded ethics and rising criminality prevented the rise of a state that serves its citizenry and is fully accountable to it.

U.S. assistance failed to secure transparent, participatory governance based on the rule of law. To paraphrase a contemporary joke, building an autocracy out of a democracy is making a fish soup out of an aquarium, but constructing a democracy on the foundation of an autocracy is making an aquarium out of fish soup.

Today, not one of the former Soviet republics, with the exception of the Baltic states and possibly Georgia, is a full-fledged democracy. In Ukraine, the two leaders of opposition parties — former interior minister Yuri Lutsenko and former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko — are both in jail.

In Russia, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin recently alleged at the Valdai Club dinner that “some political experts claim that the multiparty model outlived its usefulness.” With his nomination to run for president, Putin is poised to become one of the longest-reigning leaders in Russian history, on par with Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, Nicholas I and Stalin.

To be sure, Russia is no longer communist, but neither is it a democracy. It appears to be a criminalized, paternalistic autocracy. To quote former Defense Secretary and C.I.A. chief Robert Gates, Russia is “an oligarchy run by the secret services.”

An unhappy place, it suffers from some of the world’s highest rates for drug use, corruption and suicide.

In addition, it is run by a party — United Russia — intent on maintaining its influence. The speaker of the Duma, Boris Gryzlov, who is also a United Party leader, recently declared that winning anything less than a constitutional majority (300 out of 450 seats) in this Sunday’s Duma elections would be considered a defeat. And, he added ominously, “defeat is not an option.” Polls suggest about 52 percent for United Russia — less than the coveted constitutional majority.

Putin’s external agenda is no less grandiose. He has declared that he intends to push for a Eurasian Union, which would stretch from the Polish border to the Pamir mountains. It would include Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, bringing Russian soldiers back to the Afghan border, and Moscow will undoubtedly try to bring Armenia and Ukraine into the bloc. The man who called the collapse of the U.S.S.R. “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century” seems intent on correcting that alleged wrong.

Twenty years after the Soviet dissolution, Russian leaders are using intriguing rhetoric. Gryzlov insists on calling the expansion project “bolshaya strana,” or “large country” a calque of “Grossraum” as promoted by Carl Schmitt and other German ideologues in the first part of the last century.

Russian nationalism is growing stronger. In public opinion polls, the slogan “Russia for (ethnic) Russians” is gaining popularity. Stalin, a hero for the Communist Party (still the second largest political force in the country), consistently ranks among the nation’s favorite historical leaders. And nasty nationalists keep gaining followers.

At the same time, senior officials and tycoons vacation, bank and educate their offspring in Europe rather than Eurasia. As the nationalists say, “The Chinese and the Muslims can come and take our territory, but they cannot take our souls — the Westerners can.”

At the United Russia Party congress where he received his nomination, Putin attacked the “Judases” in non-government organizations who dare to take Western money to promote democracy. Immediately, three Duma members wrote an article demanding tax and prosecutorial investigations into Golos, the only independent election-monitoring organization left in Russia. This bodes ill for liberties of the Russians.

Some U.S. democracy activists and government officials claim that the advent of new information technology and social networks can bring democracy to places like Russia, Central Asia or the Middle East. They talk in terms of the “TV Party” — people who watch state-controlled TV — and the Internet Party — those who are more critical and worldly.

But technology is value-neutral, and content is king. In Eurasia, cyberspace reflects the society — just as it does in the Middle East, where Salafists and the Muslim Brotherhood get more hits and page views than liberals. All manner of Kremlin “trolls” and Slavic ultra-nationalists are tremendously effective at using cyberspace for propaganda and worse. In Russia, cyberspace also reflects growing ethnic and religious tensions and the rise of anti-Americanism.

Twenty years after the Soviet collapse, challenges to democracy, free markets and the rule of law still abound. The ghosts haunting post-Soviet space make it more difficult for the U.S. and the West to deal with those who rule the largest country on earth and the neighborhood it controls.

America’s relations with Pakistan have been steadily deteriorating ever since a Navy Seals team killed Osama bin Laden near Islamabad in May. Matters became still worse in September, when Adm. Mike Mullen, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, accused Pakistan’s intelligence agency of supporting an attack on the American Embassy in Kabul. And on Saturday, the relationship hit a new low when a NATO airstrike mistakenly killed two dozen Pakistani soldiers, and Pakistan retaliated by shutting down supply routes to Afghanistan that crossed its territory.

Instead of relying heavily on Pakistan as a supply corridor, the United States should expand its cooperation with Russia, which has been playing an increasingly important role in military transit to and from Afghanistan. This would serve as both a hedge and a warning to the generals who control Pakistan.

True, this proposal might seem ironic, as Afghanistan was the site of a nearly decade-long struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union toward the end of the cold war. (During that time, America cooperated with Pakistan to support Afghan mujahedeen fighting the Soviets.) But working with Russia today is in fact the key to preventing the United States from becoming a hostage to Pakistan’s dysfunctional politics and its ambitions in Central Asia.

Expanding transit routes into and out of Afghanistan is a critical American national interest, and it would improve security for NATO forces while signaling that Washington was not beholden to Islamabad. It might also cause Pakistan to reassess its policy of providing sanctuary and support to terrorist networks operating against American forces.

In the last two years, the Northern Distribution Network through Russia and Central Asia has evolved from a peripheral component of American wartime logistics to the principal path for non-combat supplies into Afghanistan. These routes — which traverse Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Latvia, Azerbaijan and Georgia — carry approximately 52 percent of all coalition cargo into Afghanistan. And under a 2009 air transit deal with Russia, 225,000 Americans have traveled there through Russian airspace on more than 1,500 military flights.

These northern routes are far less dangerous than the supply routes that go through Pakistan, where militants often attack American and NATO convoys. As the Obama administration’s surge in Afghanistan draws to a close and we begin to reduce our military presence there, these routes will become even more significant. Indeed, the United States might be able to draw down its forces from Afghanistan safely, rather than subjecting American convoys to attacks while passing through Pakistan.

Negotiations to withdraw American forces from Afghanistan through Russia will not be easy; thus far, Moscow has allowed only the shipment of non-combat supplies. Nevertheless, Russia agreed earlier this year to let certain types of armored vehicles cross its territory into Afghanistan, and Washington should pursue further cooperation.

Facilitating the American drawdown from Afghanistan would allow Russian leaders to make an important contribution to regional security; successful American-Russian cooperation, with help from other countries along the northern routes, could also help maintain regional stability.

Russia remains deeply conflicted about America’s wider role in Central Asia.  However, the prospect of an American withdrawal has helped a number of Russian officials appreciate the security benefits of the American presence there. Indeed, during a Nov. 11 meeting outside Moscow, Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin of Russia stated clearly that NATO played a “positive” role in Afghanistan and expressed concern about the consequences of a premature withdrawal.

Many Americans forget that Mr. Putin was the first world leader to call President George W. Bush after the 9/11 attacks to offer his assistance, and Moscow quickly agreed to permit American bases in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia to support the war effort in Afghanistan. And even before 9/11, during the Clinton administration, Mr. Putin proposed United States-Russian cooperation against the Taliban; Washington turned down the offer for political reasons — a mistake we should not repeat.

Critics may worry that relying on the northern routes to supply our troops in Afghanistan and withdraw them as we reduce our presence there will make the United States overly dependent on Russia. But because of Afghanistan’s location, we have no choice but to depend on others for access to its territory.

The choice is between Pakistan on one hand, and Russia and Central Asian nations on the other. And Russia, unlike Pakistan, has not hosted militants who are killing Americans on the battlefield.

Russian President Dmitri Medvedev’s warning last week of measures Russia will take if the United States and NATO continue with their missile-defense program in Europe, while sounding tough, is not the end of the U.S.-Russian reset. It is more of a pre-election recess of Russian-American diplomacy.

But his statement, and more broadly the state of U.S.-Russian arms-control efforts, reveals a broad gap in how the nuclear powers perceive each other’s importance. For Washington, Russia has fallen far down on the list of priorities. The Russian political and security establishment, by contrast, continues to be obsessed with the United States.

In the televised statement, Medvedev warned that should the United States continue with plans to base antimissile systems in Europe, Russia would arm its ballistic missiles with advanced defense-penetration systems, deploy tactical missiles on the border with Poland, and possibly withdraw from the New Start nuclear arms reduction treaty.

The tough talk was provoked by Medvedev’s widely anticipated failure at a meeting with President Obama in Honolulu earlier this month to secure a formal assurance that the NATO system could not be used against Russia’s intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Obama’s refusal has its reasons, one of which is domestic. In some respects, for the White House to negotiate with the Republicans in Washington and even with parts of the U.S. government on any arms deal with Russia is more difficult than talking with the Russians.

As for Russia, a year after the promising Lisbon NATO summit — at which Russia and the alliance declared that they were on a path toward a strategic partnership — and less than a year before the U.S. presidential elections — the Russians have concluded that they have nothing to expect from Obama on arms issues in the remainder of his term.

As responses go, Medvedev’s may not have been particularly smart, but the damage so far is not great, either.

One of the measures listed by the Russian president — a radar under construction in Kaliningrad — is about early warning of a missile attack, not about countering NATO’s future missile defenses.

Similarly, giving Russia’s new strategic nuclear warheads a better capability to penetrate missile defenses is a long-standing program, which will continue as long as deterrence remains the mainstay of the U.S.-Russian strategic relationship. As for New Start, there is little that Russia can gain from quitting the treaty. Before it does so, it should look back on the experience of the U.S.-Soviet arms race and its role in the terminal exhaustion of the Soviet Union.

Medvedev’s darker, but also more distant threat to deploy Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad and Krasnodar to target Poland and Romania, is, of course, anything but smart. By threatening the countries that will host U.S. interceptors, Russia will refurbish its reputation as a security threat to Europe and help solidify NATO, and it could lead to a new confrontation if the U.S. responds by raising the ante and creating a threat to Russia analogous to the Euromissiles of the early 1980s.

With Europe and Russia having slipped down on the Pentagon’s priority list, a new Cuban missile crisis appears improbable. Nonetheless, the failure to agree on missile defenses in the past year has revealed important and troubling things about the American and Russian security establishments.

Beyond Afghanistan, and to some extent Iran, the United States sees Russia as a low-value partner. It does see it as a security risk in view of the anti-Americanism of much of Russia’s elite and Moscow’s close ties with a number of anti-U.S. regimes. But as America becomes ever more focused on the Asia-Pacific region, it is basically ignoring Russia, whose presence and influence there are considered negligible.

The Russians, on the contrary, persist in seeing the United States through the old Soviet prism of a superpower confrontation. Most officials in Moscow refuse to accept Iran as the real rationale for the U.S./NATO missile-defense efforts, and see them as a cover for undermining the Russian deterrent. Hence the insistence on a dual key, which would give Moscow the means to block NATO’s system; or the idea of a sectoral defense, which would ban NATO assets from northern Europe, from where they could threaten Russian missiles; and essentially a demand, in the form of legally-binding guarantees, for a new ABM treaty.

The situation is clearly asymmetrical: While the U.S. does not care much about Russia, the Russians’ pride refuses to accept this, preferring to believe that the U.S. is only dissimulating its deep-seated desire to diminish and, if possible, destroy Russia.

One can certainly live with that, but both governments would do themselves a lot of good if they started to amend the state of affairs between them. Russia will not be a U.S. ally, but there are a number of areas in which the Russian connection has been and will continue to be useful for Washington: nonproliferation, terrorism, and regional issues, including in the Asia-Pacific.

For Russia, seeking to regain the status of a politico-military peer of the United States, and, through rearmament, restore the balance of terror as the only acceptable basis for the bilateral relationship, can come only at a high cost, both financial and political.

Despite the lack of progress so far, missile defense continues to be a potential game changer in the woefully archaic strategic relationship between Washington and Moscow. Russia needs to take a hard look at its negotiating position and cleanse it of the unrealistic and essentially useless demands for formal guarantees of U.S. nonaggression. The United States, for its part, needs to hold out a prospect of serious technological transfers to Russia as part of missile-defense cooperation.

Unless the U.S.-Russian diplomatic recess is used for serious homework and building channels for intense trust-building dialogue between Russia, on the one hand, and the U.S. and its allies on the other, mutual assured destruction, as during the Cold War, will remain the foundation of security in the Euro-Atlantic.

Before meeting Vladimir Putin, it’s best to get acquainted with his horse. Each year a group of academics and journalists is invited by the Russian government to agonise about the fate of Russia. What results is a cross between a seminar and group therapy. The last day is set aside for the guv’nor himself.

Anticipation is spiced by uncertainty. No one knows until the last minute where, or even if, the meeting will take place. Last year the group was flown from Moscow to Sochi, bussed past the fevered reconfiguration of the subtropical landscape for the Winter Olympics, to an opulent guesthouse on the Black Sea coast. And back again in one night – even though, it emerged, we could have all stayed put. Putin was at his desk in Moscow the next day.

This year’s magical mystery tour wound a serpentine path through the birch forests outside Moscow, a discreet spot beloved by generations of secretive nomenklatura, until we arrived at the New Century Equestrian Club. At 7pm on a snowy Friday night you would not have expected this place to be a hive of activity. But it was.

In the veterinary surgery a horse on a slab was undergoing an examination of the bronchial tract; in the air-conditioned dressage centre no lesser a horseman than the president of the Russian Equestrian Federation, Anatoly Merkulov himself, was putting horses going through their routines (as inspected by Princess Anne last year); and in the club’s restaurant, one-and-a-half hours late, Putin breezed past bottles of 1888 Armagnac, and invited his guests to try the bottled mushrooms, with whose preparation he was intimately familiar.

The rest of Russia is in little mood for this. After two decades of freedom of expression and movement, Russians are still waiting to live the normal life they rightly yearn for. Many have given up waiting. A private poll of 5,000 students at Moscow State University found that 80% intended to leave the country. Nor are Russia’s filthy rich too patriotic about the motherland. Negative capital flows doubled this year from $34bn to $70bn. Even if the price of crude oil hit $125 a barrel, more money would be flowing out of the country than in. As it is, four times as much money (as a percentage of GDP) is going out than in. It tells you everything you need to know about a Russia digging in for another 12 years of Putin.

Putinism, the selective autocracy that he created, is a giant car boot sale. The going rate is $50m for a governorship, $500,000 for a middle-ranking bureaucrat. Little wonder that once in power, their job is to get a healthy return on their investment. There are decent governors, and the group saw one at work effectively attracting foreign investment in Kaluga, south of Moscow, but the directly appointed system itself is rotten. Putin makes little secret of his disdain for the alternative, freely elected governors. Some observers say he has a pathological hatred of democracy. To underline his disdain he has now, for the second year in a row, told the story of the elected governor who legged it out the back door rather than face the fury of the mob after a local disaster.

But, truth be told, Putin is also at a loss when he gets jeered. And this, according to the pollsters, will happen more often. It is not just that Putin’s personal brand is ageing. The popularity of the entire St Petersburg clique around him is falling with him. United Russia, the party of apparatchiks he created, will by hook or by crook, but largely by crook, get the required percentage of votes in Sunday’s Duma elections. Last time round Moscow students were told by tutors to take digital snaps of their ballot sheets if they wanted the right grades – one of many examples of the “vote early, vote often” variety. But the party is a fragile instrument of power because it represents no one but itself.

Putin’s problem is not staying in power. It is leaving it – without all hell breaking lose between rival boyars, and with his personal fortune intact. Crushing the rival bids of political nonentities like Dmitry Medvedev is child’s play for him. Standing permanently on guard at the fulcrum of competing privatised arms of the state, armed with his suitcase of his rivals’ commercial secrets, is a more tedious occupation. And the one thing he is petrified of is genuine political dissent which he cannot control.

Russians are not looking for another revolution. They have seen enough of those in one lifetime. But they see clearer than any foreign experts how sclerotic Putin’s “manual guidance” system of government is. There is no one at the helm. He is truly on his own. A government run like that does not govern. It gets by, by buying people off.

The horses turned out not to be Putin’s. (He had his own stable; how silly, we should have realised.) Six were Medvedev’s and one a gift from another central Asian potentate, Kazakhstan’s Nursultan Nazarbayev. In 20 years the venue went from being the bankrupt dairy of a collective farm called Lenin’s Ray to a playground for the elite. Most Russians would like something in-between.

Le 4 décembre prochain, quelques mois avant le scrutin présidentiel de mars 2012 qui devrait marquer le retour de Vladimir Poutine à la présidence, auront lieu en Russie les élections législatives. A cette occasion, sept partis s’affronteront afin de pourvoir les 450 sièges de la chambre basse du parlement russe, la Douma. Comme lors du cycle électoral de 2007, le scrutin se déroulera au scrutin proportionnel intégral avec un seuil de représentativité fixé à 7%. L’enjeu de ces législatives – qu’on présente volontiers comme une répétition générale de la présidentielle – semble restreint. Tout d’abord parce que la Russie est un système semi-présidentiel où prime le pouvoir exécutif qui prime, le parlement n’ayant qu’une marge de manoeuvre limitée. Ensuite parce que la Douma est, depuis 2003, sous le contrôle du parti Russie unie, qui dispose actuellement de 315 des 450 sièges et devrait conserver la majorité après 2011.

Créé en 2001 pour soutenir Vladimir Poutine, après son élection à la présidence le 26 mars 2000, Russie unie ne domine pas seulement la Douma mais aussi l’ensemble des parlements régionaux du pays. Symbole de l’emprise du Kremlin sur le paysage politique russe, le parti se trouve néanmoins depuis plusieurs mois dans une position incertaine. Son lien privilégié mais asymétrique avec Vladimir Poutine – qui dirige le parti depuis 2008 mais a toujours refusé d’en être membre –, fait que Russie unie n’est pas considéré comme un parti mais comme un département de l’administration présidentielle, sans autonomie politique ni programme. Durant le premier mandat de Vladimir Poutine, ses dirigeants avaient multiplié les déclarations en faveur d’un gouvernement partisan. Or celui formé après la première victoire de la formation en décembre 2003 ne comprenait qu’un seul membre de Russie unie.

Le projet d’un gouvernement partisan a depuis été abandonné et seuls six des vingtsix ministres qui composent l’actuel gouvernement sont membres du parti.

Russie unie, qui bénéficie de la mobilisation des élites régionales et de celle des toutes les administrations du pays en période d’élection est de plus en plus considéré comme l’instrument privilégié d’un système corrompu, ce dont témoigne le succès de la formule maintes fois reprise par laquelle le blogueur et ancien membre du parti d’opposition Iabloko, Alexeï Navalny, a qualifié en février 2011 la formation au pouvoir de “parti des escrocs et des voleurs”. La popularité du parti s’en ressent. Alors que celui-ci était crédité de 67% des suffrages un mois avant les élections législatives de 2007, il ne recueille que 51% d’intentions de vote aujourd’hui selon le Centre Levada.

Russie unie a mis en place, durant le printemps et l’été 2011 une vaste opération de sélection des candidats dans le but officiel de renouveler ses élus. Depuis 2007, la formation organise régulièrement – des scrutins régionaux ayant lieu deux fois par an en Russie – des élections primaires internes au cours desquelles les membres du parti désignent les candidats. Mais dans la perspective du scrutin législatif, ce processus s’est sensiblement sophistiqué avec la création d’un Front populaire panrusse chargé de réunir les candidatures des représentants de différentes organisations – associations mais aussi entreprises et syndicats – désireuses de concourir aux primaires de Russie unie et qui par ailleurs obtiennent le droit de participer au vote interne. De plus l’organisation de jeunesse de Russie unie, Molodaïa Gvardia (la Jeune garde), s’est vu confier la tâche d’organiser des “primaires jeunes” pour sélectionner des candidats âgés de 21 à 35 ans qui participeront ensuite aux primaires du parti.

Le clip de présentation du projet détaille sur fond de musique hip hop les enjeux et modalités de ces primaires jeunes : “La possibilité pour toi de devenir député à la Douma ! Remplis le formulaire en ligne, présente ton programme aux électeurs, enregistre et publie tes vidéos, débats et réponds aux questions sur les réseaux sociaux ! Cela ne dépend que de toi ! Récolte le maximum de votes SMS dans ta région ! Et deviens candidat à la Douma!”. Pour se porter candidat, il suffit, en effet, de créer en ligne sa page personnelle sur le site Internet des primaires jeunes, d’indiquer ses motivations et les premières initiatives législatives que l’on souhaite soutenir en cas de victoire. Le règlement précise que les primaires sont ouvertes à toutes les personnes qui partagent les valeurs de Russie unie et qui n’appartiennent pas à une autre formation. Les jeunes doivent également organiser un certain nombre d’événements – actions de rue réunissant au moins une cinquantaine de personnes, manifestations culturelles ou sportives, rencontres avec des jeunes, etc.
– et en publier les comptes rendus photo ou vidéo sur leur page. Le site Internet des primaires jeunes comptabilise les votes par SMS reçus par chaque candidat.

Pourtant, contrairement à ce que le choix du terme de primaires pourrait laisser supposer, les résultats du scrutin ne sont pas déterminés par la quantité de votes SMS reçus par chacun des candidats mais décidés par un jury à l’issue d’une présentation par chaque candidat du bilan de sa campagne et parfois d’un débat avec ses concurrents. De même, il ne suffit pas de figurer parmi les vainqueurs pour faire partie des candidats présentés par Molodaïa Gvardia pour participer aux primaires générales de Russie unie. Il s’avère d’ailleurs que les candidats présentés par l’organisation de jeunesse du parti n’avaient pas tous participé aux primaires jeunes. Sur 184 candidats soutenus par l’organisation de jeunesse aux primaires générales, 34 étaient dans ce cas et parmi les quatorze candidats représentant Molodaïa Gvardia sur la liste définitive des candidats de la formation pour les élections à la Douma, six ont participé aux primaires jeunes, les huit autres sont des responsables fédéraux ou régionaux de l’organisation.

Cette dissociation entre la mobilisation autour des primaires et ses effets réels sur la sélection des candidats et le rôle marginal joué par le vote n’est pas spécifique aux primaires jeunes. Le règlement des “primaires générales” – auxquelles 4 700 personnes ont officiellement pris part – précise d’ailleurs que celles-ci ne constituent pas une procédure d’investiture des candidats de Russie unie à la Douma puisque cette prérogative relève exclusivement de la direction du parti. Ainsi, les listes établies par les instances régionales du parti à l’issue de réunions au cours desquelles ses membres et les représentants du Front populaire panrusse ont voté pour désigner leurs candidats n’avaient qu’un caractère de recommandation et permettait donc aux instances centrales d’ajouter d’autres noms. Sur les 600 candidats présents sur la liste électorale définitive de Russie unie, adoptée à l’issue du XIIe congrès du parti les 23-24 septembre 2011, une cinquantaine n’avaient pas participé aux primaires parmi lesquels des députés sortants et des représentants du gouvernement.

Si l’effondrement de l’URSS s’est accompagné de la disparition du système de la nomenklatura qui encadrait strictement le recrutement politique et la progression des carrières, on aurait pu supposer que l’investissement des dirigeants dans la création d’un grand parti majoritaire à tous les niveaux du pouvoir visait justement à mettre en place un canal de sélection et de professionnalisation politique partisan. Or la façon dont se sont déroulées les “primaires” conduit à douter que Russie unie joue pleinement ce rôle ni même tende à le jouer. La persistance du “réglage à la main” pour reprendre la formule du politiste américain Darrell Slider dans le choix in fine des candidats à la Douma témoigne, en effet, de la faible autonomie de Russie unie et de la volonté des dirigeants du Kremlin de conserver le parti sous leur contrôle en intervenant de façon dans la constitution définitive des listes électorales. A l’inverse, l’instauration d’une logique de recrutement politique partisan supposerait l’institutionnalisation et le respect des procédures de sélection que sont les primaires. Elle valoriserait également davantage l’appartenance et l’investissement au sein du parti. Il existe désormais, surtout parmi les jeunes, un petit nombre de candidats et d’élus qui ont débuté leur carrière au sein de Russie unie et qui participent aux différents processus internes de sélection mais ceux-ci demeurent minoritaires par rapport à la majorité des élus du parti, dont certains prennent leur carte au moment où ils deviennent candidats.

Faut-il voir dans les primaires une tentative de mobilisation électorale appelée à lutter contre la baisse de popularité du parti davantage qu’un moyen de sélectionner les candidats? Pour Russie unie – fort de 2 millions d’adhérents officiellement mais qui compte peu de réels militants –, les primaires ont, en effet, constitué un moyen de rassembler les alliés du parti et d’attirer l’attention des électeurs et des médias bien avant le début de la campagne officielle. Une grande partie du travail a d’ailleurs été sous-traitée aux jeunes, puisque l’ensemble des manifestations que devaient organiser les candidats aux primaires jeunes se sont déroulées sous les couleurs de Russie unie. L’appropriation-détournement du terme de primaires pose néanmoins la question des attentes alors suscitées parmi les participants, en particulier les plus jeunes et des effets à long terme de leur éventuelle désillusion.

Interrogé à ce sujet, l’organisateur des primaires jeunes à Moscou ne nie pas que certains aient pu être déçus. Mais il insiste sur le fait que le scrutin a permis à beaucoup de jeunes de se faire remarquer et d’acquérir de l’expérience avant d’ajouter que les vainqueurs ont, en outre, eu le plaisir de recevoir des cadeaux.

If Vladimir Putin returns as planned to the presidency in 2012, he will once again face the challenge of modernizing the Russian economy. This is something both he and his seat-warmer, Dmitri Medvedev, have failed to achieve during three consecutive presidential terms. On Thursday, a meeting of the working group on Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organization is expected to end 18 years of negotiations by finalizing terms of membership for Russia, the largest economy outside of the trade body. Even Georgia, which fought a war with Russia in 2008, is now onboard. Once the few remaining issues are overcome, Russia should become a member during a ministerial meeting on Dec. 15.

W.T.O. membership will offer Russia some of the tools to rebalance its economy, which relies heavily upon selling the nation’s oil. Yet it presents challenges too. While membership promises increased market access for Russian exports, Moscow will have to open Russia to foreign imports. Agreements will need to be implemented as a means to attract investment, stimulate trade and increase competition. However, previous actions by the Russian authorities give ample cause for concern.

The current political elite is little inclined toward economic liberalism. The coercion of foreign investors in favor of national economic champions, protectionism during the 2009 economic crisis and Russia’s willingness to engage in trade wars with neighboring states have demonstrated this. They have long seen W.T.O. accession as a political rather than technical process: For them, tariff reductions are concessions to trade partners, rather than a means to stimulate trade and competition.

They also tend to view membership as an entitlement. During bilateral negotiations with Georgia, Putin stated that it was down to the United States and European Union to secure Russia’s accession. As such, Russian authorities at the highest level have demonstrated little affinity for W.T.O. principles.

A customs union among Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus is another constraint: It has little economic justification and a 2009 plan for all three to join the W.T.O. as one bloc nearly delayed Russian accession further. Moves have been taken to reconcile customs union obligations with Russia’s W.T.O. accession; nevertheless, the project shows Russia’s use of trade for political ends, aiming to preserve Soviet era trade patterns that W.T.O. market access would likely disrupt.

Industrial and agricultural lobbies have opposed entry, claiming that Russian companies require more time before facing global competition. However, little has been done to make Russian industry more efficient in the last 18 years, even without unfettered competition.

The challenges of membership are not limited to economic policy; they also undermine the political model that has come to define Russia since 2000. Under Putin, Russian citizens accepted reduced political freedoms in exchange for stability and economic growth. Within the W.T.O., Moscow will have fewer means to support inefficient industries against competition from abroad. This could cause problems for the 460 monotowns, which rely on one factory or industry for jobs and public utilities.

Certainly, Russia does not stand to reap immediate rewards from membership. World Bank studies stress that while all households will benefit in the long run, some will confront initial challenges of retraining or relocation. The government will struggle to maintain its legitimacy if it does not provide ample means for these costs to be met.

As a major oil exporter, over 50 percent of its foreign trade is already tariff free. However, the metallurgy and chemicals industries stand to gain from increased market access and protection from antidumping measures. In time, other industries will benefit from restructuring and increased productivity stimulated by increased competition.

Russia needs foreign capital in order to affect its modernization and is aware of the need to project a more positive investment image. World Bank analysis also stresses that the largest gains from W.T.O. membership will come from increased foreign investment in the Russian market for services. Clearly, W.T.O. membership alone will not convince cautious investors, but opening the Russian economy to international practices can only have positive benefits for the business climate.

Still, to become a truly open economy, Russia will need to use W.T.O. membership as a springboard for wider economic change. It is Putin who will face the tough realities of implementing W.T.O. commitments, leading an elite that has long favored protectionism and subsidy over serious reform. However, the long-term benefits of membership should outweigh the initial costs. Russia will first have to make courageous decisions on which industries are truly sustainable and take measures to protect the population from the upheaval of adjustment.

Vladimir Putin is back. And with him are the most primitive foreign policy initiatives. At the beginning of his first term as Russia’s president, Putin sought contacts with Cuba, Libya and North Korea. As he prepares for a third term, he has expressed interest in creating a “Eurasian Union” with Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Putin insists that these nations have a common history and that mutual cooperation could bring their people “direct economic benefit” and “allow all of them to integrate into Europe more rapidly and from a stronger position.”

Putin knows that more than half of Russian voters recall the Soviet past with affection. He understands that the idea of reviving the empire entertains many of his fellow citizens. And so he seems ready to ignore facts in favor of ideology.

The facts, however, are formidable. Based on International Monetary Fund figures, Russian per capita GDP last year was $10,360; in Kazakhstan, it has not exceeded $9,000; in Belarus, $5,770; and in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, $840 and $730 respectively. All these states are ruled by authoritarians: Kazakh leader Nursultan Nazarbayev has been in office for 22 years; Tajikistan’s Imamali Rakhmonov for 19; Belarus’s Alexander Lukashenko for 17; and authoritarian rule in Kyrgyzstan is from time to time replaced by chaos. The economic divide between members of a Eurasian Union would be 2.7 times bigger than that between European Union nations.

So what is gained by attempting to unite Russia with its authoritarian and mostly unsuccessful neighbors? Putin insisted last month that integration might produce a “powerful supranational unity” that can become “one of the poles in the contemporary world” and play an “effective ‘bridge’ between Europe and the dynamic Asia-Pacific region.” But this would be a $2.7 trillion GDP union sandwiched between the European Union (GDP, $15.6 trillion) and China (GDP $11.2 trillion). How can Russia be a “bridge” if, with its aging infrastructure, less than 1 percent of trade between the European Union and Asia travels through Russia (down from 11 percent of this trade in 1989, during Soviet times). In 2007, 62 percent ofChinese goods imported by Russia came via Helsinki and other European ports.

For whom is such a union attractive, except totalitarian Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan?

Putin’s plan suggests that Russia is not interested in the World Trade Organization but will build its own customs union from neighboring rogue states. Putin’s Russia considers itself an independent “power center” that does not intend to strengthen ties with modern democracies but to rally around countries with political systems less advanced than its own.

This path leads nowhere. Following it, Moscow would shed power and influence. In a world orchestrated by three centers of power and wealth — the United States, the European Union and China — Russia can play a significant role only if it strengthens the beleaguered European “pole.” Russia and the E.U. nations share common history, culture and civilizational traditions; they also complement each other economically. Only as a unified community of E.U. nations, including Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and the Balkan countries — which have a combined GDP of nearly $19 trillion, great technological potential and extensive natural resources — can the broader Europe look with confidence into the future.

Accordingly, leaders in Brussels should rethink certain myths. Russia is big, but not too big for Europe; as an E.U. member, it would be the second-largest national economy and add one-fourth to the E.U. population. Half of Russia’s trade is conducted with E.U. nations. Sixty percent of Russian tourists head for Europe, not China or Central Asia.

Russia has a kind of a European people but, unfortunately, not a European-type government. But Europe has for decades sought to transform former autocracies — Spain, Portugal and Greece in the 1970s and 1980s; Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Baltic republics in the 1990s — into decent, Western-style states. Russia must be next.

E.U. leaders should tell the Kremlin elite that full integration into the European Union is possible. They should tell all Russians that their country is perceived by Europeans as European — and it could become an E.U. member state if it reaches the level of democracy and the rule of law common to other members. These declarations would take from Putin one of the main arguments for “Sovietization” of foreign policy — the stereotype that no one in Europe is waiting for Russia.

The European Union has historically considered applications for membership, not sent invitations. But Europe will never achieve its potential if it leaves Russia out. And Russia will never realize its potential while being excluded from the European family. If European politicians want to be the true heirs to Monnet and Spinelli, they should act first and offer Russia a full-scale integration plan. Paris and Rome are more attractive than Bishkek or even Astana. The European Court of Justice looks much better than Basmanov-style criminal justice. The power of E.U. practices today is the most significant asset of the united Europe — and it should shape Russian foreign policy.

Politicians in Brussels and Washington often debate about “who lost Russia.” But Russia is not yet lost. It must change from within. As its ruling plutocracy seeks to turn back to the Soviet past, the attraction of a European future looms brighter. For history to shift course, deeds, not words, are required.

Ahora que las elecciones presidenciales del año 2012 en los hechos terminaron debido a la decisión de Vladimir Putin de recuperar su antigua oficina del Kremlin, es hora de pasar de personalidades a políticas. Putin tiene previsto permanecer en el Kremlin por dos períodos presidenciales más, otros 12 años, ya que está habilitado para hacerlo según la Constitución recientemente modificada. Entonces, ahora ya se sabe con certeza quién será el próximo presidente de Rusia, no obstante aún no es tan obvio qué es lo que él espera lograr.

Sin embargo, actualmente un asunto se ha catapultado a la cima de la agenda política de Rusia: la integración euroasiática. A principios de octubre, Putin escribió un artículo de prensa que proclamaba lo que parece ser su meta actual en política exterior: una Unión Euroasiática de los antiguos estados soviéticos. Dos semanas más tarde, en San Petersburgo, Putin fue el anfitrión de una reunión de primeros ministros de la Comunidad de Estados Independientes (CEI), ocho de los cuales firmaron un acuerdo estableciendo una zona de libre comercio entre sus países. El 1 de enero de 2012, Bielorrusia, Kazajstán y Rusia, que ahora forman una unión aduanera, se unirán en un espacio económico único.

Putin quiere aún más: quiere lograr un “Schengen de Eurasia” (acuerdo de libre circulación de personas entre los tres países, conformado siguiendo el ejemplo de la Unión Europea)  hasta el año 2015, y posteriormente desea alcanzar una unión monetaria y, en última instancia, una integración económica plena. De hecho, Putin quiere reestructurar las relaciones de Rusia con los ex estados soviéticos para crear no meramente un mercado más grande, sino que desea alcanzar a la postre una alianza económica de bloque-con-seguridad.

La viabilidad de este plan no debe tomarse a la ligera. Desde que la Unión Soviética se disolvió hace 20 años, se ha hablado mucho acerca de la reintegración de los Estados sucesores. Poco se ha cristalizado a partir de dichas ideas, debido principalmente a que Rusia se muestra reacia a apoyar económicamente a otros países. Al mismo tiempo, los países de la CEI han mantenido un enfoque cuyos factores dominantes son la construcción de sus propios Estados y su independencia frente Rusia. Ambos factores, sin embargo, puede estar en proceso de cambio, por lo menos en algún sentido.

Rusia, quien hace una media docena de años atrás abruptamente puso fin a los subsidios en el ámbito energético que otorgaba a Ucrania, Bielorrusia, Moldavia, como también a otros países, ahora expresa interés en apoyar a algunos de sus vecinos que están enfrentando problemas, a cambio de algunos de los activos más lucrativos de dichos países. Durante la crisis mundial de los años 2008-2009, Moscú comenzó a fortalecer su situación económica regional y a promover el establecimiento de la unión aduanera con Bielorrusia y Kazajstán, aun a riesgo de complicar su propia solicitud para ser miembro de la Organización Mundial del Comercio.

Para los socios de Rusia las formas actuales de la integración, como ser la unión aduanera y el futuro espacio económico único, también son medidas pragmáticas que sirven a sus intereses. En Bielorrusia y Kazajstán, si se los considera como un conjunto, Rusia ha ganado 25 millones de nuevos consumidores potenciales; Bielorrusia y Kazajstán, por su parte, han ampliado su acceso al sólido mercado ruso compuesto por 140 millones de personas.

El mercado ruso también es atractivo para muchos otros países, que van desde el pequeñísimo Kirguistán hasta Ucrania, que tiene un tamaño considerable. En este último caso, por ejemplo, las perspectivas de una asociación más pronta de este país con la UE se han visto recientemente disminuidas por las dificultades internas de la UE, así como por la persecución por motivos políticos de la ex primera ministra Yuliya Tymoshenko que llevan a cabo las autoridades ucranianas.

En su muy citado artículo periodístico, Putin negó que sus nuevos planes de integración estén dirigidos a la restauración de la Unión Soviética bajo otro nombre. Esta es una afirmación creíble, por tres razones básicas: la completa evaporación del ímpetu imperial de Rusia, su renuencia a pagar las facturas de otros países y la renuencia de los nuevos países a ceder demasiada soberanía al ex país hegemónico.

Consiguientemente, Rusia ha sido estricta en términos de su ayuda financiera a Bielorrusia, presionando al gobierno de dicho país para que abra su economía a las empresas rusas. Y, por todos sus intereses en el mercado ruso, ni Bielorrusia ni Kazajstán han accedido al deseo que tiene Rusia acerca de que ellos reconozcan la independencia de Abjasia y Osetia del Sur, regiones de Georgia que se han separado de dicho país.

Putin es ambicioso, pero también es cauteloso. Probablemente visualiza que únicamente el interés económico mutuo puede funcionar. La creación de un nuevo Consejo de Ayuda Mutua Económica (COMECON, el bloque comercial de la era soviética), o de un nuevo Pacto de Varsovia, son opciones tan imposibles como lo es una Unión Soviética para nuestros días. La integración euroasiática, en caso de que sea posible, debe recorrer un camino diferente.

Si todas las partes interesadas se unen voluntariamente, y proceden en una modalidad paso a paso, tal como ocurrió con la Unión Europea o el Acuerdo de Libre Comercio de Norteamérica, la integración euroasiática beneficiará a todos los involucrados. En lugar de comportarse como un imperio que a hurtadillas trata de reinventarse, Rusia tiene una oportunidad para poder convertirse en líder regional. Pero la integración euroasiática fallará si los socios de Rusia perciben el proceso como un intento de Moscú por lograr dominio político.

Todo esto tiene implicaciones geopolíticas. En Europa Oriental, Rusia está claramente acercando más a Bielorrusia, y está compitiendo con la UE sobre el futuro de la orientación económica de Ucrania. Mientras tanto, en Asia Central, Rusia, después de haber construido fuertes lazos económicos con Kazajstán, está dirigiendo su atención a Kirguistán, compitiendo así de manera más activa con su vecina China. En lugar de elegir entre Bruselas y Beijín, Moscú ahora busca convertir a Rusia de una vecindad post-imperial en una comunidad. Y, como una meta a largo plazo, Putin vislumbra una estrecha relación económica entre su Unión Euroasiática y la UE en lo que él llama una Gran Europa.

En el occidente, la declaración más recordada de Putin acerca la Unión Soviética describe el final de la URSS como “la mayor catástrofe del siglo XX”. Sin embargo, otras aseveraciones de Putin, menos conocidas por los lectores que se encuentran en el occidente, indican que el sistema soviético es “inviable”. Según su  implacable juicio, aquellos que quieren que retorne la URSS “no tienen cerebro”.

Veinte años después de la pérdida de su imperio del siglo XX, Rusia está dispuesta a avanzar hacia un nuevo tipo de integración con sus ex-provincias. Esto no pretende constituirse una amenaza para los demás, sino más bien la integración económica se constituye como una prueba de lo mucho que Rusia ha aprendido sobre el mundo desde el año 1991, y de cuán más moderna se ha tornado como resultado de dicho aprendizaje.

Twenty years ago, soon after the demise of the Soviet Union, Russia’s progress toward freedom and democracy seemed irreversible. As a member of the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Russia committed itself to uphold a number of democratic principles and to safeguard basic freedoms and the rights of its people. The Russian Constitution, adopted in 1993, stipulates that Russia is a federal democratic state committed to the rule of law.

Today none of that appears to be true.

The federal status of Russia was destroyed by Vladimir Putin’s shift to a de facto appointment of regional governors. The basic precepts of the rule of law are challenged daily as court decisions are subjected to the interests of the authorities. Dissenters in Russia are silenced and have no legal recourse against such oppression.

Democracy in Russia is in retreat. Elections to the lower house of Parliament scheduled for Dec. 4 have been undermined by the denial of official registration to opposition parties representing different parts of the political spectrum, the last example being the People’s Freedom Party in June.

Whatever credibility these elections still had was erased by the recent announcement that President Dmitri Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin would swap posts after the presidential election is held in March 2012.

In effect, Russians are being presented with a stage-managed campaign between political forces loyal to the Kremlin. Responsibility for this lies solely with the current political leadership.

This poses a major challenge. Russia is an integral player in matters of global security, business and economic relations. The time has come to acknowledge openly and honestly that Russia is not a democracy, but an increasingly fragile state run by an authoritarian regime that aims to bully not only its own citizens but also the rest of the world.

It is time to hold a broad, public debate in the West on how democracy and the rule of law can be supported inside Russia and how the rest of the world should relate to Russia, its rulers and Russian society, including the opposition and independent civil society organizations.

The Helsinki Final Act of 1975 started a process that eased Cold War tensions in Europe and provided a base for civil rights movements in the Communist bloc. This historic document served as a vocal manifesto against antidemocratic regimes in Europe. We aim to initiate a new Helsinki process by opening a discussion on Russian democracy — again in Helsinki — on Nov. 9-10.

Practical steps we might consider include refusing to accept the impending Russian elections as legitimate. Furthermore, Russia should not get deferential treatment in the Council of Europe or O.S.C.E., and the Russian parliamentary delegation should not receive a warm welcome in Strasbourg.

Cooperation with Russian leaders should be conditioned on their compliance with international conventions to which Russia is a party. Moreover, Russian officials involved in corruption and the oppression of freedom should be exposed to real sanctions. However awkward this may be for traditional E.U. realpolitik, it is reasonable in the current circumstances to consider postponing the planned E.U. summit meeting with Russia scheduled for December, after the charade of the elections in the lower house of Parliament. The E.U.-Russia Partnership and Cooperation Agreement currently under negotiation should also better reflect these realities.

It is time that Russia’s true friends speak out.

Tema: El actual primer ministro ruso, Vladimir Putin, que ocupó la presidencia en 2000-2008, ha anunciado en el último congreso del partido Rusia Unida que se presentará a las elecciones presidenciales de 2012.

Resumen: La candidatura de Putin –quien como primer ministro ha conservado unas elevadas tasas de apoyo popular, superiores a las del presidente Dmitri Medvedev– significa casi con certeza que regresará al Kremlin tras las elecciones; y por un período que, tras una reciente reforma constitucional, será esta vez de seis años y con la posibilidad de otro mandato posterior. ¿Qué consecuencias tendrá esta nueva fase para las relaciones de Rusia con Occidente? En el presente ARI se examina el contexto interno de la sucesión en la presidencia y se ofrecen cinco razones por las que no es probable que ésta suponga, per se, una ruptura con la etapa actual de la política exterior.

Análisis: Las primeras reacciones en Europa y EEUU al largamente esperado anuncio de que Putin se presentará a un tercer mandato, tras el paréntesis de los cuatro años de Medvedev, han sido mayoritariamente negativas. El antiguo oficial del KGB Putin es identificado con un período de reafirmación nacionalista rusa y competición con otras potencias; así como de retroceso de las libertades en el ámbito interno, con una concentración del poder en manos de los siloviki o miembros de los servicios de seguridad. Medvedev, por el contrario, ha sido un interlocutor más aceptable gracias a su perfil como jurista y a su defensa de la modernización tecnológica de Rusia, para la cual ha tratado de lograr la cooperación occidental.

Sin embargo, esta dicotomía entre Putin y Medvedev como la cara más “agresiva” y más “amable”, respectivamente, de la Rusia actual no se corresponde plenamente con la realidad. A continuación recordaremos los antecedentes de la sucesión actual, para explicar después por qué el retorno de Putin no equivale necesariamente a un incremento de la conflictividad en las relaciones con Occidente.

Contexto de la sucesión

El presidente Medvedev accedió al cargo en 2008 tras ser designado como candidato por Putin, quien no podía optar entonces a un tercer mandato al haber agotado el máximo de dos consecutivos. Como primer viceprimer ministro, Medvedev se había ocupado de los llamados “proyectos nacionales” –sanidad, educación, vivienda y agricultura–, así como de la coordinación del gobierno; con la excepción de los llamados “ministerios de fuerza”, controlados directamente por el presidente: Defensa, Interior y los servicios de seguridad e inteligencia.

La victoria de Medvedev en 2008, gracias al apoyo del “partido del poder” –Rusia Unida– y de los medios de comunicación controlados directa o indirectamente por el Estado, se interpretó como una estratagema temporal de Putin hasta que pudiera presentarse nuevamente a las elecciones, ya que el límite constitucional se refiere únicamente a dos mandatos consecutivos. Así, la interpretación mayoritaria es la de que éste ha seguido controlando los resortes del poder desde su nuevo puesto como primer ministro, incluso los “ministerios de fuerza” que teóricamente responden sólo ante el presidente, al carecer Medvedev de apoyos suficientes entre los siloviki.

Esta situación atípica de “doble poder” o “tándem” ha sido interpretada con distintos matices: desde quienes la han considerado una simple continuación de la presidencia de Putin, con Medvedev como mero títere o ayudante del anterior –“Batman y Robin”, según los calificó la embajada estadounidense en uno de los cables publicados por Wikileaks–, hasta los que han percibido, no obstante, algunos intentos del segundo por diferenciarse respecto de su antecesor.

La tesis que defendemos en este análisis es que, precisamente por el alto grado de dependencia que ha existido entre el tándem dirigente, Putin no tratará al regresar a la presidencia de establecer una ruptura drástica con la política exterior de Medvedev; salvo que otros factores o acontecimientos externos le impulsen a ello. Cinco razones apoyan esta afirmación: (1) Putin nunca ha perdido su influencia; (2) Medvedev no ha sido un presidente pro-occidental; (3) la política exterior de Putin fue más pragmática de lo que se recuerda; (4) Moscú actúa en gran medida de forma reactiva a la actitud de Occidente; y (5) Rusia nos seguirá necesitando para su modernización económica.

(1) Putin nunca ha perdido su influencia

A pesar del reparto teórico de competencias entre presidente y primer ministro, Putin ha continuado desempeñando un papel internacional activo, realizando con frecuencia declaraciones que corresponderían teóricamente al presidente: por ejemplo, criticando la actuación de Tbilisi durante la breve guerra ruso-georgiana de agosto de 2008. No es el primer ejemplo de mayor protagonismo de un primer ministro ruso a causa de la posición de debilidad del presidente: lo mismo sucedió al final de la etapa de Boris Yeltsin, cuando la delicada salud de éste permitió a Yevgeni Primakov –un veterano especialista en relaciones internacionales– asumir en gran medida la dirección de la política exterior.

Aunque en ocasiones Medvedev ha criticado indirectamente algunas decisiones adoptadas durante la presidencia de Putin, como la dependencia de las exportaciones energéticas, no ha existido una contradicción entre las posiciones de ambos en asuntos internacionales. Se ha tratado, más bien, de un reparto de papeles en el que Medvedev ha proyectado una imagen más dialogante de cara al exterior para minimizar los recelos que despierta Rusia entre otras grandes potencias, especialmente occidentales. Esta táctica puede considerarse acertada para Moscú, en cuanto que le ha facilitado hacer escuchar su voz y defender más eficazmente sus intereses; lo cual ha debido necesariamente contar con el asentimiento de Putin, con quien el presidente ha tenido que consensuar al menos las líneas generales de la política exterior, pese a que la ejecución de la misma haya estado condicionada por su diferente estilo de liderazgo.

(2) Medvedev no ha sido un presidente pro-occidental

Una segunda razón por la que la marcha de Medvedev –quien previsiblemente se convertirá tras las elecciones en primer ministro, intercambiando su cargo con Putin– no supondrá una ruptura con la etapa anterior es que también él, al igual que su antecesor, ha defendido los intereses de Rusia y su papel como actor independiente evitando alineamientos que limiten su autonomía. Incluso aquellas características que pueden considerarse aportaciones del propio Medvedev a la política exterior, como el discurso de la modernización de Rusia, parten de una concepción de su país como gran potencia por derecho propio en un sistema internacional multipolar; de forma que no se plantea en modo alguno una identificación con las potencias occidentales o con las instituciones euroatlánticas, como la UE y la OTAN. Así, ha continuado la oposición a la ampliación de la Alianza Atlántica a Ucrania y Georgia –ahora en suspenso por falta de consenso entre los propios aliados–, y se ha empleado incluso la fuerza cuando los intereses rusos considerados vitales han estado en juego, como en el caso de Osetia del Sur.

El proyecto de Medvedev ha consistido, por tanto, en modernizar y diversificar la economía rusa con el fin de reforzar su poder e influencia de cara al exterior, así como asegurar una gobernanza eficaz en el plano interno. Para ello, las potencias occidentales aparecen como socios comerciales y colaboradores en proyectos de I+D+i, sin que esto tenga por qué extenderse a una coincidencia de posiciones en los demás ámbitos, y preservando el régimen político ruso en su configuración actual, pese a las carencias del mismo en cuestiones de democracia y derechos humanos. Esta autocrítica a la debilidad interna de Rusia y su desventaja económica con respecto a otros países desarrollados constituye en gran medida una actualización del discurso de Putin en 2000, aunque adaptada a la personalidad y a la diferente retórica de Medvedev.

(3) La política exterior de Putin fue más pragmática de lo que se recuerda

Un argumento adicional para afirmar que no existe una concepción tan distinta de la política exterior rusa en la presidencia de Putin y la de Medvedev es que el primero actuó al asumir la presidencia en 2000 con un notable grado de pragmatismo. El ejemplo más evidente fue el apoyo de Moscú a la invasión estadounidense de Afganistán tras los atentados del 11-S, obviando el rechazo del establishment de seguridad ruso a la entrada de tropas occidentales en Asia Central: Putin fue incluso el primer líder internacional que telefoneó a Bush para ofrecer su colaboración. Asimismo, en cuestiones tan espinosas como las relaciones con la OTAN –cuya ampliación se siguió definiendo como amenaza– fue también Putin quien alcanzó acuerdos como el Consejo OTAN-Rusia; no con el fin, naturalmente, de avanzar hacia una integración en la Alianza, sino para hacer posible un diálogo en el que Moscú pudiese defender sus posiciones en cuestiones de seguridad que también le afectaran, reconociendo de facto su incapacidad para detener procesos como el de la ampliación.

La estrategia de política exterior de Rusia ha incluido tanto la coacción –por acción, mediante la presión directa o el uso de la fuerza, o por omisión, rechazando alcanzar acuerdos– como la negociación como medios para hacer valer sus intereses en el ámbito internacional en las presidencias de Putin y Medvedev, incluso tras el establecimiento del “tándem” dirigente a partir de 2008. La frecuencia con la que se ha optado por unos u otros instrumentos ha dependido de las circunstancias en cada momento. En el caso de la etapa de Putin, existió una clara decepción con los beneficios del apoyo a la presencia de EEUU en Afganistán; así, la retórica de la Administración Bush a favor de la “expansión de la democracia” mediante cambios de régimen, y su apoyo a los levantamientos populares o “revoluciones de colores” en la periferia ex soviética, fueron percibidos en Moscú como una amenaza para la permanencia de su régimen.

Pese a ello, tanto estos desafíos como otros también procedentes de Occidente, incluyendo la ampliación de la OTAN, han sido considerados por Moscú amenazas políticas –para la influencia de Rusia y su prestigio como gran potencia– más que de hard security; de forma que no se ha respondido a ellas mediante el uso de la fuerza salvo en el caso de la guerra ruso-georgiana, donde se produjo un enfrentamiento sobre el terreno al tratar el gobierno de Tbilisi de recuperar Osetia del Sur atacando las posiciones de los separatistas. El otro ejemplo más claro de empleo de la coacción por parte rusa, esta vez económica, fueron las sucesivas “crisis del gas” con Ucrania, donde se pretendía obligar a ésta a aceptar el fin de un trato preferente en cuanto a los precios como respuesta al deterioro de las relaciones políticas desde la “revolución naranja”. En ambos casos se ha tratado de un enfrentamiento bilateral entre Rusia y dos países de lo que considera su zona de influencia geográfica como gran potencia; no tanto una agresión a Occidente by proxy o por actor interpuesto similar a los conflictos de la Guerra Fría, como se tiende a interpretar de forma errónea, más allá de aprovechar la situación para enviar un mensaje de advertencia a las potencias occidentales y recordarles la necesidad de tener en cuenta a Moscú como un actor poderoso e influyente.

(4) Moscú actúa en gran medida de forma reactiva a la actitud de Occidente

Esta capacidad de Rusia para adaptarse a las circunstancias –si bien de forma imperfecta, como sucede con frecuencia– empleando aquellos instrumentos mediante los cuales puede defender sus intereses de forma más eficaz, constituye otra razón para que el cambio de presidente no sea un factor tan decisivo, más aún cuando se trata de dos líderes que han consensuado sus posiciones durante los cuatro años de vigencia del “tándem”.

La principal causa del actual impulso a las relaciones con Occidente en todos los ámbitos –reset con EEUU tras la llegada de Obama, desbloqueo de la cooperación práctica con la OTAN tras la guerra ruso-georgiana y Asociación para la Modernización con la UE– no ha sido la voluntad de Medvedev de evitar enfrentamientos, como se demostró en el caso de Osetia del Sur. Por el contrario, en gran medida se ha tratado de una reacción a una situación internacional diferente de la que encontró Putin durante su primer y especialmente su segundo mandato, con una voluntad política mucho más definida por parte de las potencias occidentales de dar prioridad al diálogo con Rusia.

Así, la intensificación de las relaciones en el ámbito político y en otros como el económico puede tener un efecto positivo de spillover o extensión a otras áreas, como la de la seguridad, reduciendo las percepciones de amenaza y por tanto los incentivos para emplear la coacción en lugar del diálogo. Esta capacidad de adaptación en cuanto a los instrumentos de la política exterior no se extiende, en cambio, al ámbito de la política interna, donde Moscú continúa rechazando cualquier intento de otros Estados u organizaciones para influir en la configuración de su régimen político, por ejemplo, con los impedimentos que se están presentando para el despliegue efectivo de una misión de observación de la OSCE en las próximas elecciones legislativas.

(5) Rusia nos seguirá necesitando para su modernización económica

La principal línea conductora del discurso de Medvedev en estos últimos años, el proyecto de “modernización” de Rusia –entendida como diversificación de la economía para avanzar desde las exportaciones energéticas a sectores de alta tecnología– tampoco responde a una decisión individual del actual presidente, sino a una necesidad reconocida por el conjunto de las élites rusas, aunque con matices en cuanto a la urgencia de la misma y su prioridad respecto de otros objetivos.

El proyecto de Putin al asumir la presidencia en 2000 se inscribía en esta misma línea: dotar a Rusia de una economía sólida superando las crisis de los 90, manteniendo las capacidades necesarias –no sólo militares– para preservar un estatus de gran potencia en el exterior. Sin embargo, los ingresos obtenidos por el Estado ruso gracias a los altos precios de la energía eliminaron los incentivos para realizar reformas más profundas, prefiriendo centrarse en la consolidación del control estatal sobre el sector energético.

La lógica de la modernización –o si se prefiere, la equiparación de Rusia con otros países desarrollados, superando definitivamente su complejo de inferioridad tras la disolución de la URSS– está indisolublemente unida, por tanto, a la existencia de unas relaciones estables con Occidente; ya que mientras exista una elevada dependencia tecnológica y comercial de los países occidentales cualquier intento competición con ellos en el ámbito de la política internacional estará condenado al fracaso. Esta estabilidad en las relaciones se refiere únicamente, como hemos visto, al mantenimiento del diálogo pese a la existencia de crisis puntuales, de forma que –por ejemplo– los desacuerdos en cuestiones políticas no supongan el bloqueo de la cooperación económica, o viceversa.

Conclusiones: El previsible retorno de Putin a la presidencia de Rusia no supone por sí mismo el inicio de una etapa de conflicto en las relaciones de este país con Occidente. Del mismo modo que en la etapa de Medvedev se ha continuado –con el consenso de Putin– tratando de lograr el reconocimiento del país como gran potencia influyente, mediante los instrumentos considerados más eficaces en cada momento, tampoco hay que esperar a partir de las elecciones que el nuevo presidente renuncie a este objetivo. Sin embargo, la interdependencia económica es un imperativo suficiente para que Moscú trate de evitar enfrentamientos graves que detraigan recursos escasos de su desarrollo interno; salvo en los casos muy poco frecuentes en los que se perciba que sus intereses considerados vitales –por ejemplo, la permanencia en el poder de la elite gobernante– están en juego.

Por otra parte, la política exterior rusa ha mostrado un grado apreciable de reactividad a la actuación de otros actores, muy especialmente las grandes potencias occidentales. En consecuencia, no es sólo el relevo en el Kremlin lo que va a determinar el estado de las relaciones en los próximos años, sino también la capacidad de EEUU y de la UE para mantener un diálogo fluido, cooperando en aquellos aspectos donde los intereses sean compartidos. De esta forma podrán reducirse progresivamente las percepciones de exclusión de Rusia, y por tanto sus incentivos para defender sus posiciones mediante la coacción o el bloqueo, aunque se mantenga –como es inevitable– un componente de rivalidad con Occidente por consolidarse como centro de poder en el mundo multipolar en el que ya vivimos.

Traffic around Tiananmen Square was even worse than usual last week as President Vladimir Putin rolled through town to cement the supposedly flowering Chinese-Russian relationship. A series of high-level deals were signed between Chinese and Russian state-owned enterprises and China announced a substantial infusion into the new Russian Direct Investment Fund.

While cordial, an unspoken undertone to the meetings was Russian concern about growing Chinese influence in the former Soviet Union and particularly Central Asia.

Just before his visit to Beijing, Putin had announced a desire to form a new Eurasian Union that would tie a number of former Soviet states back into the Russian orbit. Hands immediately starting wringing in Brussels. At this time of E.U. weakness, the Eurasian Union was seen to be aimed at counterbalancing Western institutions.

These concerns are largely ill-founded. While the new organization is clearly an effort by Russia to reassert authority over its old dominions, it is in fact aimed East rather than West. Russia is far more concerned by growing Chinese influence in its backyard than anything the West is throwing its way.

The core of Russia’s concerns is the slow but steady progress of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, originally set up in the post-Cold War period to define borders between its five members — China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan ( later joined by Uzbekistan).

But in the last 10 years the S.C.O. has evolved into the most interesting, and perhaps consequential, example of Chinese diplomacy. As a Chinese scholar put it to us the other day in Beijing, the organization went from being focused on regional security to honing in on regional development — a trajectory that accords tidily both with China’s and the Central Asians’ interests.

While nominally an equal partner to all members, Russia has felt like a junior partner in the S.C.O. Once one of the two poles in the world, Russia is now considered among the ranks of new rising powers — not a bad group to be in, but clearly a step down from its previous position in global affairs.

Moscow has sought to counter this by retaining links and authority among former Soviet republics. Those in Europe have now been absorbed into the European Union, but the Eurasian states have remained within the Kremlin’s sphere of influence, bound by a latticework of organizations like the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Eurasian Economic Community.

The S.C.O. was initially ignored by Russia when it was set up a decade ago, but it has steadily developed into an increasingly important actor that has become a vehicle for China’s push to develop Central Asia.

China has focused on trying to turn the S.C.O. from a security-focused organization into an economic bloc, a policy predicated on the knock-on effect that a stable and prosperous Central Asia would have on China’s underdeveloped Xinjiang Province.

Using its deep pockets to pour money into the poor and isolated Central Asian states, China has secured energy contracts, worked on hydroelectric plants and helped develop infrastructure from roads to telephone systems.

But China has gone beyond hard-nosed economics, developing a holistic strategy that attempts to bring Chinese soft power to bear on the region. China has established Confucius Institutes to teach Chinese in all the Central Asian states but Turkmenistan, and has also helped develop an S.C.O. University that brings together some 50-plus universities across China and Eurasia.

As part of a push to develop the S.C.O. as a cultural entity, as well as one focused on security and economics, these are admittedly baby steps, but there is some evidence of success. Growing numbers of Central Asian students can be found at Chinese Universities and reports from Confucius Institutes in the region point to the children of affluent families trying to learn Mandarin.

This is perhaps the greatest threat to Russia’s powerful legacy in the region. Moscow has no money to spend, so it has been happy to allow China’s investment in Central Asia, as long as Russia retains cultural predominance. That is starting to slip. Putin’s efforts at a Eurasian Union thus appear to be a rearguard action to stem the tide of increasing Chinese omnipotence in Russia’s backyard.

Wednesday’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing to consider the nomination of Michael McFaul as the next U.S. ambassador to Russia highlights one of three steps that Congress should take this fall related to Russia and U.S.-Russian relations.

The Senate should confirm McFaul, who has served as President Obama’s top adviser on Russia at the National Security Council. Second, both the House and Senate should waive the Cold War-era Jackson-Vanik Amendment, which deals with emigration of Soviet Jews as it applies to Russia, and third, they should replace it with an up-to-date bill that would sanction Russian officials responsible for gross human rights abuses. These moves would strengthen McFaul’s hand as he heads to Moscow.

Notwithstanding some serious concerns we have had with Obama’s “reset” policy — we think the administration has oversold its successes, essentially ignored Russia’s neighbors and done too little on human rights concerns — McFaul is a renowned Russia expert, a strong proponent of democracy promotion (he recently wrote a book on the subject) and deserves the Senate’s support.

He regularly meets with representatives and activists from Russia’s neighboring states, even though those countries technically fall under a different directorate at the NSC. He also meets with Russian opposition figures and civil society activists in Washington and every time he travels to Russia. If he gets confirmed, we are confident that Russia’s deteriorating human rights situation will receive high-level attention at the U.S. Embassy. It would be particularly good to have McFaul in Moscow before Russia’s elections (for parliament in December and for the presidency next March), even if they will be flawed, so that he can offer a frank, on-the-ground assessment.

McFaul’s efforts would be enhanced if Congress both repealed the Jackson-Vanik amendment and in its place adopted the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2011. Passed in 1974, Jackson-Vanik denied permanent normal trade relations status to countries such as the then-Soviet Union for restricting Jewish emigration. Every year since 1994, however, Russia has complied with Jackson-Vanik requirements. That it remains on the books is a source of endless irritation to Russian officials and activists. Accordingly, graduating Russia from Jackson-Vanik was supported by the Bush administration and is a top priority of the Obama administration. Fifteen countries have been graduated from Jackson-Vanik, a piece of legislation that served its purpose but has outlived its utility.

Yet Congress is reluctant to lift Jackson-Vanik for Russia. For starters, few members of either the House or the Senate are strongly advocating its demise. Second, other issues have become attached to Jackson-Vanik, such as Russia’s overall record on human rights. Finally, some members of Congress believe Jackson-Vanik offers a sliver of leverage by which to register concerns about Russia’s trajectory.

That’s where the Magnitsky legislation comes into play. Sponsored by Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-Md.) with 21 Senate co-sponsors (nine Democrats, 11 Republicans and one independent), the legislation would impose a visa ban and asset freeze against Russian officials responsible for serious human rights abuses, such as the 2009 death of 37-year-old Sergei Magnitsky. Jailed unjustly after alleging that officers of Russia’s Interior Ministry took part in a $230 million tax fraud against his client, Hermitage Capital Management, Magnitsky was murdered in jail by being denied medical treatment despite endless pleas for help.

Like no other initiative in memory, this legislative push in both Congress and in Europe (the Dutch parliament in July unanimously endorsed a Magnitsky-like effort, and the European parliament has done the same) has struck a chord in Moscow and forced Russian authorities to reopen the Magnitsky case. Several prison officials where Magnitsky had been held are now the focus of investigations. In the absence of accountability and rule of law in Russia, American and European parliamentarians have made it clear that if Russian officials engage in major human rights abuses, they and their immediate families cannot enjoy the privilege of traveling to, living or studying in the West, or doing their banking in Western financial institutions.

This draft bill has already done more for the cause of human rights in Russia than anything done by the Obama administration (or by the Bush administration before it). It also caused the State Department to ban certain Russian officials implicated in the Magnitsky case, though this is not sufficient, and these individuals should also be added to an asset-freeze list.

Threats from Russian officials that passage of the Magnitsky legislation would sink the reset policy and end cooperation on issues such as Iran, North Korea and Afghanistan are hollow. Russia presumably is cooperating with us on these strategic challenges because it is in their interest to do so, not because they’re doing us favors.

By waiving Jackson-Vanik for Russia and passing the Magnitsky bill in its place, Congress would be arming the next ambassador to Russia with critical bipartisan support for advancing the cause of freedom and human rights in Russia

In Eric Ambler’s masterly interwar thriller, The Mask of Dimitrios, the puppet master pulling the strings as a seedy Europe slides hopelessly into war is the shadowy Eurasian Credit Trust. The name was deliberately chosen. For most of the last century, Eurasia was scarcely a neutral term: it evoked the whiff of racial degeneration, the prospect of civilisation overrun by eastern hordes.

But now comes the Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin, perhaps looking to lift the attention of a restive public at home to something more elevated than a peremptorily staged presidential succession, supporting the idea of creating a Eurasian union of former Soviet-bloc nations that could become “one of the poles of the modern world, serving as an efficient link between Europe and the dynamic Asia-Pacific region”.

Putin explicitly denies that this is about rebuilding the USSR. Nevertheless, there has been a lot of talk of Eurasia since the collapse of the USSR and there is a close connection between the Eurasia concept and Soviet history. Belarus and Kazakhstan have already embarked on commercial integration and the new union will hope to take that further, perhaps attracting other former Soviet republics into its orbit: Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are mentioned. And in a world where EU membership is effectively barred to Russia, and where the EU is promoting its own eastern partnership, led by Poland and Sweden to intensify European links with other former Soviet republics – including both Belarus and the Ukraine – one can see the logic in Russian efforts to extend internal markets, remove barriers to labour mobility and at the same time win the fight for the hearts and minds of the inhabitants of its western gateways, above all in Ukraine.

Politicians like the occasional grand vision, especially one with historical resonance. Yet will all this be worth the effort? The precedents are not reassuring. If the EU’s eastern partnership smacks of an effort to reshape the region in the image of the early modern Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth – a time of Polish and Swedish regional power when merchants and ideas travelled easily between the Baltic and the Black Sea – Putin’s Eurasian union seems stuck in the Soviet era. Of course, Soviet ambitions went far beyond Eurasia; they wanted influence in the Middle East, Africa and south-east Asia. And this became clear after 1945, when Stalin’s Russia really did become a world power thanks to its defeat of Nazis and the Kremlin got its chance to build a second world of socialism around the globe that united eastern Europe, the Balkans and the Soviet republics with other socialist partners further afield. Ideas and technology – above all, ideas about technology and the modernisation of peasant societies – circulated across the borders of the countries in this second world, as far away as Cuba, Angola, Ethiopia and North Korea. Today some historians remind us that the “third world” was so called precisely because of the sustained tussle for its allegiances in the 1950s and 1960s between the first and second worlds. Yet all of this can be exaggerated. The second world was concentrated on eastern Europe, and other member states came and went. The rise of China weakened the ideological prestige of Moscow. And none of it was ever a match in purely economic terms for the astonishingly powerful global alliance system put together by Washington, linking the powerhouse economies of western Europe and east Asia with the oil-producing states of the Middle East.

The first world definitely won that particular struggle and globalisation – by which I mean the extraordinary combination of industrial productivity growth in American partners such as Japan and South Korea with the financial flows that reshaped finance after the 1970s – ultimately brought the Soviet second world to its knees, both because it simply could not compete internationally and because much of eastern Europe had become addicted to western debt. Overall, the effort of sustaining this vast sphere of influence probably cost the USSR far more in purely economic terms than it got back. It had one great achievement to its credit – the industrialisation along late 19th-century lines of its own backward periphery, but by the late 20th century, that was not enough.

There is a lesson here to be learned, surely, from an earlier foray into a kind of Eurasianism by Turkey. In the early 1990s, the then president Turgut Özal imagined a coming “Turkish century” based on a new union among the Turkic-speaking states of the Eurasian heartlands. After his death, it became abundantly clear that the choice between orienting the Turkish economy east or west was no kind of choice at all. Having learned that lesson, the Erdogan government is pursuing a sort of post-imperial foreign policy of its own. But what makes it much more powerful than the earlier Özal model is not only that it is oriented to the former Ottoman lands in the Balkans and the Middle East rather than to the post-Soviet Black Sea and Caspian republics, but more importantly that it is intended as a complement rather than an alternative to the increasingly European and global orientation of the Turkish economy.

In short, it is no wonder Putin stresses his new vision of deeper integration is not meant as a return to the Soviet past. The question is whether there is any alternative model that makes sense for his proposed union. If the coupling of the Russian economy to the southern Stans brings with it a decoupling from the more powerful regional dynamos to its west and east, it will end up as a drag, not a spur, to growth and Russia will pay a heavy price for an old-fashioned dream of imperial glory.

Mikhail Prokhorov, propietario de minas de oro en Siberia y de un equipo profesional de baloncesto en los Estados Unidos, es uno de los hombres más ricos de Rusia, con una fortuna de 18 mil millones de dólares. En junio aceptó encabezar a un partido político de centro-derecha para participar en las elecciones parlamentarias de diciembre. A sus 46 años de edad, Prokhorov aparentemente creía que su experiencia en el mundo de los negocios favorecería sus perspectivas políticas.

Prokhorov se equivocó y en septiembre renunció al partido que había dirigido. Sin embargo, el bochorno que puede estar sintiendo ciertamente es mejor que el destino que padeció Mikhail Khodorkovsky, otro oligarca ruso con ambiciones políticas que lleva ocho años en prisión desde que audazmente desafió a Putin y sus ideas sobre cómo había que administrar a Rusia.

El retiro de Prokhorov se dio apenas unos días antes del anuncio de Rusia Unida, el partido en el poder en el país, de que Putin buscaría un tercer mandato presidencial en 2012, intercambiando puestos con el actual presidente, Dmitri Medvedev, quien será primer ministro. Eso puede haber sido demasiado para Alexei Kudrin, ministro de finanzas desde 2000, cuyo desacuerdo por el aumento en el gasto de Medvedev condujo a su renuncia.

En ausencia de rostros o ideas nuevas, las únicas perspectivas en el próximo año electoral serán seguir inyectando más petrodólares a una economía en dificultades y muy ineficiente. Ese gasto desenfrenado alimentará la corrupción, la inflación y la dependencia de los recursos naturales – los tres males que Kudrin ha combatido durante toda su administración.

Si bien Prokhorov es uno entre varios oligarcas rusos respetados, Kudrin era el miembro más respetado del gobierno. La salida de ambos de la vida política se está considerando cada vez más como un síntoma de las crecientes divisiones entre la elite gobernante de la era de Putin, e incluso como presagio de una crisis política.

Efectivamente, hay muchas señales sutiles de pánico en la cúspide acerca del estado de la economía del país, pero no hay indicios de que Rusia Unida tenga un programa nuevo para hacer frente a estos desafíos en la próxima administración de Putin, además de censurar más Internet. Pero todas las señales de conflicto en el liderazgo supremo dual de Rusia –Putin y Medvedev—han desaparecido.

Hasta septiembre, Medvedev hizo grandes esfuerzos para alentar la esperanza de cambio. No obstante, Putin nunca perdió el control del aparato gubernamental, y las perspectivas de que recuperara la presidencia nunca disminuyeron. Esa esperanza siempre fue falsa. En efecto, los gobernantes de Rusia han estado en el poder desde hace casi una década. Algunos, como Kudrin, se mostraban visiblemente impacientes por un cambio, pero la mayoría seguía muy conforme con el statu quo.

Como sucedió durante la Guerra Fría, una crisis burocrática reveló súbitamente los mecanismos mediante los cuales esta élite ha ejercido el poder. Cuando renunció a su partido, Prokhorov acusó públicamente a un funcionario del Kremlin, Vladislav Surkov, de jugar sucio y lo llamó el titiritero que había “privatizado la política en Rusia”.

Surkov, subjefe de la administración presidencial desde 1999, es copresidente del “Grupo de Trabajo sobre la Sociedad Civil” –uno de varios órganos creados en 2009 para “reajustar” las relaciones ruso-estadounidenses—junto con Michael McFaul, el asesor para Rusia del presidente estadounidense, Barack Obama. El grupo de trabajo puede haber contribuido a acabar con la guerra de palabras, al menos del lado estadounidense, y McFaul ha sido nominado para ser el embajador de su país en Rusia. Pero los miembros del Senado estadounidense que deben confirmar su nombramiento harían bien en interrogarlo acerca de Surkov, un hombre que ha supervisado la destrucción de la política democrática rusa.

Al enfrentarse a Surkov, Prokhorov demostró que no estaba dispuesto a ser un títere. De hecho, Prokhorov puede ofrecerle mucho a su país. Su discurso articúlate y su éxito autolabrado son raros entre los políticos rusos. Además, en vista de que la vivienda, la atención de la salud y la educación son menos accesibles que a finales de los años ochenta, su programa político se centra en lo que se debe hacer para mejorar el capital humano de Rusia—el principal problema que retiene a la economía de Rusia.

De acuerdo con Prokhorov, la productividad en Rusia es tan solo del 6%-10% comparada con la de Estados Unidos, por lo que la economía se ve en apuros incluso cuando el precio del petróleo, su principal exportación, alcanza precios máximos. Dos millones de profesionistas educados emigraron hace poco de Rusia. Durante los últimos veinte años, la desigualdad social se ha triplicado. Prokhorov llega a la conclusión de que es una sociedad feudal en la que el monopolio político de Putin y el mal manejo económico exacerba la llamada “maldición de los recursos naturales” que aflige a muchos países exportadores de petróleo.

Un análisis desolador de los males de Rusia nunca podría ser la base de un partido político patrocinado por el Kremlin. No obstante, durante algún tiempo Prokhorov trató de jugar a la política según las reglas bizantinas que rigen las elecciones rusas –y eso beneficia a Rusia Unida, la replica que hizo Putin del partido comunista de la era soviética.

Sin embargo, jugar a la política según las reglas de Putin requiere contratar a expertos, los llamados “tecnócratas.” A pesar de su perspicacia, Prokhorov se rodeó de esas personas, magos pretenciosos que convirtieron la política rusa en el espectáculo repugnante que es ahora. Tenía la esperanza de acabar con el monopolio de Putin usando sus propias herramientas.

Ahora, el programa de Prokhorov es el único resultado tangible de los 26 millones de dólares que invirtieron él y sus amigos en su campaña. Probablemente él es el que más lamenta haber perdido tres meses de su tiempo. Aunque dice que no dejará la política del todo, hoy es como un oligarca más que tuvo que elegir entre la capitulación, la emigración y el encarcelamiento. El futuro de Kudrin es igual de oscuro.

The news itself was hardly startling. It has been increasingly clear during the last year that the Regent (Vladimir Putin) would recover the throne from the Dauphin (Dmitry Medvedev). But now that it seems a certainty that Russia is headed for (at least) 12 more years of Putinism, alarm bells ought to be sounding. Why? Because by every indicator — macroeconomic, political, social — the system that Putin forged in the early 2000s is all but exhausted and is driving the country toward a dead end. It must be radically reformed, or better yet, discarded. But how can it be gotten rid of with its creator back in control?

In the last 12 years, first under Putin and then under the Putin-Medvedev duo, Russia’s dependence on oil exports has grown enormously, and with it the economy’s vulnerability to swings in the world hydrocarbon market. In the early years of this century, oil exports accounted for one-third of the state budget; today they constitute one-half. At this point, the country’s budget could be balanced only if the price of oil were to rise above $125 a barrel. Already the ruble is at a two-year low against the dollar, and the stock market is down 20% this year.

If it continues on its current path, Russia is headed toward becoming a petro-state, with all the problems such systems spawn: pervasive corruption, sharp income differentiation, a lack of social mobility, a decline in scientific and technological progress, and increased control of the economy by government monopolies. As Medvedev himself has admitted, a trillion rubles (or about $30 billion) is simply stolen from the budget every year.

According to public opinion polls, a majority of Russians believes that there is more corruption today than during the “lawless 1990s.” The courts are for sale and police are so corrupt, incompetent and brutal that Russians say they are often more afraid of them than of criminals. Business creation is stifled, because for many potential entrepreneurs, the “corruption tax” is prohibitive. Despite trillions of petrodollars pouring into government coffers, education and healthcare are, in many instances, less available and of poorer quality then they were in the old Soviet Union.

The deterioration of education has meant that as the current generation of scientist and engineers reaches retirement age, there aren’t enough highly trained people to replace them. With its satellites falling out of the sky and its intercontinental ballistic missiles failing test after test, Russia now imports not only passenger planes but high-tech weaponry and battleships.

With the population aging rapidly, the state-owned pension fund has run up enormous deficits and may be close to collapse. Inflation is dangerously high at 8% — largely the result of a government move to raise pensions and salaries in advance of the December and March elections, which will be little more than shams. As Putin himself acknowledged last week, very painful cost-cutting measures will have to be undertaken to stave off budget deficits and inflation.

The result of all these things has been a mass out-migration of Russia’s most productive citizens and their families, with more than a million leaving in the last few years. Many more have vowed to leave if Putin becomes president again.

The cure for this systemic and increasingly acute malaise is well known: modernization. Both Medvedev and Putin have uttered that word hundreds of times, but they have failed to embrace what it would mean in Russia: impartial courts, honest and competent bureaucracies, a truly uncensored press, free and fair elections at all levels of government, de-monopolization of key sectors of the economy and a reduction of state control of the economy.

In other words, to truly embrace modernization, Putin would have to dismantle the very institutions and traditions he set up — a most unlikely eventuality. Yet, with its continuity now assured and normal channels of political feedback and change stifled, discontent is certain to acquire more dangerous street forms.

The United States must prepare for all manner of destabilizing developments in the world’s other nuclear superpower. We should also be ready for greater truculence in Russia’s relations with the West and greater assertiveness with regard to the former Soviet republics, which it still considers part of its “sphere of influence.”

The U.S. and its allies are likely, once again, to be exposed to Putin’s harangues and to policies informed by his profound mistrust of the West and his perennial theatrical overreactions to perceived slights. Moscow’s cooperation on Afghanistan is likely to continue, because a Taliban victory would not be in Russia’s strategic interest. But no progress should be expected on the European missile defense, Putin’s bête noir, while the modest progress that has been made in enlisting Russian support of sanctions on Iran might be halted or even reversed.

Over the last few years, the U.S. goal with regard to Russia has been to try to reset relations. To the extent that success requires at least some confluence of values between the two political systems, that objective now seems almost impossibly distant. Russia is entering rough waters, and the world will feel the turbulence.

Forty years ago The Who recorded “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” with the memorable lines “Meet the new boss / Same as the old boss.” The song came to mind with the events in Russia last weekend.

Despite years of indications that Vladimir Putin would return as Russia’s president in 2012 after a four-year interregnum as prime minister, many commentators and public officials in Russia and the United States got “fooled again.” They had been hoping that Dmitri Medvedev would stay on as president. Medvedev, they believed, was a more liberal and open-minded figure than Putin, whose initial eight years as Russian president from 2000 to 2008 brought Russia back to a much more authoritarian system. The Russian blogosphere featured endless petitions calling on Medvedev to run for reelection.

The joint announcements by Putin and Medvedev last weekend at the ruling United Russia party convention put an end to those hopes. Both leaders said they had agreed long ago (in 2007, according to Medvedev) that Putin would return as president in 2012.

It is impossible to know whether that’s true, but the fact that both Putin and Medvedev would declare that they agreed “long ago” that Putin would return reflects a striking degree of hubris. It implies that all the speculation about the Russian presidency over the past few years — among journalists, intellectuals, public officials, ordinary citizens and foreign observers — was a waste of time.

Putin had repeatedly claimed that he and Medvedev would make a decision on the presidency in late 2011. The advisers to Medvedev who openly urged him earlier this year to run for reelection — and who now presumably will be excluded from any role under Putin — must feel that their boss deceived them and left them hanging out to dry.

Why were so many Russians and foreigners (including some senior figures in the Obama administration) “fooled again”? Much of it was wishful thinking. After the Russian Parliament adopted a constitutional amendment in 2008 that extended Russia’s presidential term to six years, there was little reason to doubt that Putin would return as president in 2012. If he had waited until 2018, a lot of uncertainties would have arisen.

Back in the Kremlin, Putin will most likely seek to implement at least a few meaningful economic reforms, in a throwback to the important economic changes he adopted in 2000-2002. He also may try to reduce the corruption that he himself has done so much to foster.

But there is no reason to believe that he will return to a more democratic political system. Nothing that Putin has done suggests that he has any desire to convert Russia into a genuine democracy with meaningful political competition, free and fair elections, respect for civil liberties and observance of the rule of law. The extraordinarily opaque manner in which Putin made his decision to return as president is indicative of his aversion to democratic politics.

Political power in Russia is now more concentrated in the hands of one man than it has been at any time since Stalin’s death. No Soviet official after Stalin could have decided on his own to become the supreme ruler of the country, as Putin has now done. Russia today is still much freer than it was in Soviet times, but the concentration of political power and the lack of public accountability are very troubling for Russia’s future.

Even if Putin were not so uncomfortable with the vicissitudes of democratic politics, the massive redistribution of property that has occurred during his reign militates against any political liberalization. Putin and his cronies (many from the former KGB), who have been greatly enriched under his rule, have a stake in doing everything they can to consolidate and protect their gains. They also want to prevent the losers (such as Mikhail Khodorkovsky) from ever being able to challenge them.

Russia will thus remain what the academics Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way have described as a “competitive authoritarian” regime — a regime in which “formal democratic institutions” and rules exist, but “incumbents violate those rules so often and to such an extent…that the regime fails to meet conventional minimum standards for democracy.”

The concept implies that if the economic situation under Putin goes badly awry after he resumes the presidency (a realistic enough prospect, given the volatility of the global economy), Russians might seek to hold him accountable, using what remains of the national electoral channels. The concept also implies that Putin and his cronies will resort to any means to protect their wealth.

In these respects, Russia will be something like Venezuela under Hugo Chávez or Belarus under Aleksandr Lukashenko. It will not be like Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe or Libya under Muammar el-Qaddafi, but it will be a stifling enough version of warmed-over authoritarianism.

If Putin remains in office until 2024, he will have outlasted at least four U.S. presidents and possibly six. He will also have outlasted three generations of Chinese leaders. He will have been in power for as long as Stalin was. Meet the old boss.

On Saturday, the world learned that Vladimir V. Putin, Russia’s current prime minister and former president, will return to the Kremlin in May 2012.

When Mr. Putin stepped down as president in 2008, handing the responsibilities of head of state to the newly elected Dmitri A. Medvedev, it did not diminish Mr. Putin’s personal authority. But it did increase the chances that Russia would evolve into a stable democracy over time. His return in 2012 will drastically reduce those chances.

Mr. Medvedev’s presidency, which began in May 2008, in many ways pushed the boundaries of Russia’s political system, which maintains democratic procedures without true democratic practices and allows its citizens free exercise of some human rights while severely limiting others.

First, despite the tradition among the Russian political elite of ignoring constitutionally established rules, the presidency was shown to be a robust institution. Mr. Medvedev went from Mr. Putin’s right-hand man to semi-autonomous power center of his own upon taking office.

Second, the very existence of two senior leaders with different styles and demeanors inserted a healthy uncertainty into Russian politics. A wider range of voices could be heard in policy debates, and a sense that the status-quo ways of doing business for the past decade (which Mr. Putin seemed to embody, and Mr. Medvedev appeared to question) seemed to be subject to greater scrutiny.

Finally, the power transfer in 2008 demonstrated that Russia respected the 1993 Constitution’s ban on three consecutive presidential terms. It created a perception in the West that Russian politics were at last becoming normal — that despite all the warts of the Putin years, Russia would eventually adopt basic democratic practices, like the regular rotation of political leaders.

This perception of progress toward Western-style politics under Mr. Medvedev allowed engagement between Russia and the West to intensify. And the American-Russian “reset” has been about more than security cooperation; it entailed a new American push to bolster Russian civil society, increase government transparency in Russia, and expand contacts between the two societies. Unlike nuclear arms control, these less visible efforts don’t generally make headlines, but they do help lay the foundations for pluralistic politics in the future.

Mr. Putin’s return next year will reverse all of these positive trends. It will mark the complete personalization of Russian politics, and it will delegitimize both the presidency and political institutions more broadly. Russia’s political system will therefore be all the more dependent on the man himself, raising the stakes surrounding the next transfer of power — when Mr. Putin’s next set of term limits expire in 2024 — to potentially destabilizing proportions. (A presidential term will now be six years instead of four.)

Another Putin presidency is also a powerful signal to the ruling class that the change Russia so desperately needs is, in fact, unnecessary. But solutions to the multitude of chronic problems facing Russia, from a seemingly uncontrollable insurgency in the North Caucasus to an unhealthy, shrinking population, will come only with the kind of innovation that emerges through open competition, debate and adept government responses to rapidly changing socio-economic circumstances. Mr. Putin’s decision says to the Russian elite: there’s no need to debate Russia’s future course, the only way forward is to continue the ways of the past.

Finally, it will become far more difficult for the West to engage comprehensively with a Russian government that increasingly resembles a sultanate based on a personality cult. Even if no fundamentals have changed with Mr. Putin’s return, the perception has already shifted: Russia will find it harder to convince already skeptical publics in America and Europe that its politics and their politics aren’t so different after all. And Western policy makers will have to respond to that skepticism, no matter how beneficial (for Russia and the West) engagement with Russia has been.

Mr. Putin may well continue Mr. Medvedev’s modest reforms, or even push through a more comprehensive program, but that will not undo the damage his return has done to Russia’s post-Soviet political transformation. By weakening Russia’s political institutions, curbing pluralism, and threatening ties with the West, Mr. Putin’s return has made the system he controls more brittle.

And if, as President Obama said during his visit to Moscow in July 2009, “America wants a strong, peaceful, and prosperous Russia,” then Mr. Putin’s return is no good for the United States either.

El único voto que importa en las elecciones presidenciales rusas de 2012 ya se ha decidido, y es el de Vladimir Putin. Regresará como presidente de Rusia el año próximo.

Cuando se conoció la noticia -junto con la noticia menor de que el titular actual, Dmitri Medvédev, dejará el cargo para convertirse en primer ministro de Putin- me entraron ganas de gritar “os lo dije“. Siempre me ha intrigado la ingenuidad de los analistas, tanto en Rusia como en el extranjero, que creían que Putin nunca tendría la audacia de burlarse del sistema electoral de Rusia al punto de reclamar la presidencia. Pero el desprecio por la democracia ha sido su marca característica desde que llegara al Kremlin desde San Petersburgo hace dos décadas.

Quien creyera que las cosas serían diferentes se engañaba a sí mismo o ignoraba la realidad de Rusia. Putin no puede evitarlo ahora, como tampoco pudo en 2004, cuando siendo un líder muy popular -recuperó la autoestima del país como potencia mundial a través del hábil uso de su control de parte importante de la oferta mundial de petróleo y gas en un momento de limitada disponibilidad- habría ganado sin apenas esforzarse. Sin embargo, igual amañó esas elecciones: en la tradición de la KGB, la gente es simplemente demasiado impredecible como para que no haya que controlarla.

Si, en su liviandad, muchos analistas no eran conscientes de que Putin volvería en 2012, el público ruso ciertamente sí lo sabía. La cultura nunca miente cuando se trata de política. Cuando Putin instaló a su protegido, Dmitri Medvédev, como presidente en 2008, comenzó a circular un chiste: es el año 2025 y Putin y Medvedev, ahora ancianos, están sentados en un restaurante. ”¿A quién le toca pagar?”, pregunta Putin. ”A mí”, responde Medvedev.”Recuerda que te acabo de volver a reemplazar como presidente.”

Mijail Kasianov, primer ministro bajo Putin y ahora líder del opositor Partido de la Libertad del Pueblo, repite una y otra vez que “nadie sabía” del acuerdo de cambio de turnos. Si eso es lo que cree, solo se está engañando a sí mismo.

La triste verdad es que en Rusia la historia se repite pero, en un giro a la frase de Karl Marx, como tragedia y farsa a la vez. El poder en Rusia es producto de la inercia y el voluntarismo personal, y un pueblo en general apático se entrega ya casi por tradición a la paradoja de la tiranía rusa: un Estado débil cree que puede funcionar como un Estado fuerte al privar a los ciudadanos de las libertades básicas y la capacidad de tomar sus propias decisiones.

En tal estado, la iniciativa, en particular la iniciativa política, es peor que inútil: es un crimen, como ha demostrado el caso de Mijaíl Jodorkovsky, el ex magnate petrolero encarcelado. La única libertad que les queda a los rusos es idear bromas amargas que se nutren de su generoso patrimonio histórico de patologías políticas. Si las pudieran exportar, serían tan ricos como los alemanes.

Ante la ausencia del imperio de la ley y servicios estatales que funcionen, los rusos nos solemos percibir como subordinados al Estado y no como ciudadanos que viven sus vidas en una sociedad civil funcional, vibrante e independiente. Esta entrega de facto crea un ambiente fértil para el despotismo.

Para muchos rusos, si no la mayoría, la figura autoritaria encarna los poderes que controlan todo lo que importa en la vida; la apoyan, independientemente de las políticas que implemente, porque no hay posibilidad de hacer otra cosa. Esto explica en parte la prolongada devoción popular a gobernantes como José Stalin.

La pregunta hoy no es sobre el resultado de las elecciones presidenciales del próximo año, que ya se ha determinado. Ahora que el período presidencial se ha extendido a seis años, podemos esperar gobiernos que duren en total hasta 12 años, más de lo que duró Putin en sus primeros mandatos.

Pero ahora los delirantes e ignorantes quieren creer que en esta ocasión se convertirá en un reformador. Recuerdo un análisis similar en el año 2000, cuando los expertos trataron de equiparar el historial de Putin en la KGB con los años del presidente George H.W. Bush como director de la CIA. Putin, sostenían, no es el típico hombre fuerte de seguridad, sino un tecnócrata ilustrado. Sin embargo, la única técnica que parece haber absorbido de su carrera anterior como espía en Alemania del Este fue el control social, lo que sigue siendo cierto hoy en día.

Con todo, puede merecer la pena mirar más allá de las elecciones de 2012, porque los contextos económicos, políticos y sociales han cambiado desde 2004, cuando Putin se reeligió a sí mismo, y desde 2008, cuando fingió ser un demócrata al ceder paso a Medvedev. Hoy, los gobernantes de Rusia nunca habían parecido más arbitrarios e ilegítimos. Tras 12 años en el poder y buscar 12 más, Putin ya no puede fingir que adhiere a la democracia ni que promueve la modernización.

Durante los últimos años, el apoyo popular a Putin se ha debilitado considerablemente, en gran parte debido al estancamiento de una economía basada en las materias primas. Por ello, la manipulación de los poderes presidenciales no será tan simple como antes. De hecho, las elites de Rusia saben que las cosas van por mal camino, y están votando de la única manera que pueden: con los pies y con transferencias bancarias, sacando a sus familias y su riqueza fuera del país.

La historia también nos enseña que, a pesar de su inercia, los rusos son capaces de derribar gobiernos, como lo hicieron en 1917 y 1991. Así que, cuando se vuelva a asentar en la comodidad del Kremlin en 2012, Putin debería dedicar unos momentos a releer La hija del capitán, de Alexander Pushkin, novela sobre la sangrienta rebelión de los cosacos contra Catalina la Grande: ”Dios nos salve de una revuelta rusa, sin sentido y sin piedad.”

There is one incontestably great actor on the world stage today, and he has no interest in following our script. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin — soon to be Russia’s president again — has proven remarkably effective at playing the weak strategic hand he inherited, chalking up triumph after triumph while confirming himself as the strong leader Russians crave. Not one of his international peers evidences so profound an understanding of his or her people, or possesses Putin’s canny ability to size up counterparts.

Putin’s genius — and it is nothing less — begins with an insight into governance that eluded the “great” dictators of the last century: You need control only public life, not personal lives. Putin grasped that human beings need to let off steam about the world’s ills, and that letting them do so around the kitchen table, over a bottle of vodka, does no harm to the state. His tacit compact with the Russian people is that they may do or say what they like behind closed doors, as long as they don’t take it into the streets. He saw that an authoritarian state that stops at the front door is not only tolerable but also more efficient.

As for the defiant, he kills or imprisons them. But there are no great purges, no Gulag — only carefully chosen, exemplary victims, such as anti-corruption activist Sergei Magnitsky, who died in police custody, or the disobedient billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky, imprisoned on charges Russians regard as black humor. Western consciences may be briefly troubled, but Putin knows the international community won’t impose meaningful penalties. Seduced by Kremlin policies — from oil and gas concessions to cynical hints of strategic cooperation — Western leaders have too many chips in the game. And at home, the common people, the chorny narod, don’t mind. Instead, they gloat when the czar cuts off the beards of the boyars — or humbles an envied oligarch. As for gadfly journalists, Putin wagered that they could be eliminated with impunity, as in the case of Anna Politkovskaya. Our outrage is pro forma and temporary.

Domestically, Putin’s tactile sense of his people is matchless. His bare-chested poses seem ludicrous to us, but Russians see a nastoyashi muzhik, a “real man.” And his sobriety makes him the fantasy husband of Russia’s beleaguered wives.

Not least, Putin has renewed Russian confidence in the country’s greatness. Consistently playing an international role far greater than Russia’s capabilities warrant, he reawakened the old Stalinist sense that while the people may suffer, they do so in service to a greater destiny.

Internationally, he sizes up interlocutors with the deftness of the skilled agent-handler he was in the bad old days. His outbursts of temper and brutal language make news (while, again, appealing to his base), but his policies are cold-blooded, ruthless — and strikingly successful.

It’s worth noting how much Putin has achieved: Like his hero, Peter the Great, he tamed the new nobility (of wealth) and consolidated the power of the state. He returned Russia to great-power status — largely through bluff. He steamrolled a one-sided new START agreement over American negotiators who desperately wanted a deal. His manipulation of Europe has given him virtually every pipeline agreement he wanted while sidelining NATO’s new members in the east and keeping Ukraine weak and disunited. He dismembered Georgia but paid no price for it. He has even achieved a grip over supplies for our troops in Afghanistan second only to the chokehold we granted Pakistan in a fit of strategic ineptitude.

If Putin has a weakness, it’s his disdain for economics. Russia relies on oil and gas exports to a potentially fatal degree. Yet that, too, stems from calculated policy: A diversified economy and consequent diffusion of wealth would make Russia far more difficult to control. Today’s relative handful of oligarchs fit perfectly into the mold of the old czarist nobility (if with fewer social graces): They spend ostentatiously, party abroad and remain politically docile. Putin would rather risk a monopoly economy than a proliferation of power bases.

For centuries Moscow called itself the “Third Rome,” after the cities of St. Peter and Constantine. The allusion may be particularly apt, since Putin has done what a series of strong emperors did after the first fall of Rome or the Fourth Crusade’s sack of Constantinople: He has restored, if briefly, a fallen glory.

Demographically, economically, developmentally, militarily, even educationally, Russia appears doomed to fierce decline. But one man of genius has brought his people a last, autumnal reprieve. Vladimir Putin is a dangerous man, but a splendid czar.

Russia took the news of Vladimir Putin’s return to the Kremlin with total calm. Skeptics might even say indifference. Though the presidential elections will be held only in March, they’ve effectively taken place. Smiling joyfully, President Dmitri Medvedev passed the crown back to Prime Minister Putin, who, in turn, promised Medvedev the prime ministry.

Of course, there are people in Russia and elsewhere who are unhappy that the elections will be a formality. But then even if there were a free clash of candidates (including Medvedev), Putin would still win. Most Russians like Putin. He satisfies their idea of a strong president — a healthy man with a powerful torso, a sex-symbol of sorts, a tough talker who firmly defends the national interest.

What if the entire opposition, even people outside the political system, were permitted to participate and to criticize Putin freely on all TV channels? Would he then lose? No, he would still win. But the foundations of the Kremlin’s authority would be shaken and partly eroded, and they would have to be repaired, the way Putin did when he first entered the Kremlin in 2000 after the chaos of democratization in the 1990s.

Thus ends the Putin-Medvedev duopoly. Medvedev did not betray his senior comrade. He relinquished power without a struggle, apparently in accordance with obligations he accepted from the outset. But was there really any division of power in Russia, even a little bit? Or was it totally imaginary? Looking back, was not Medvedev just a part of Putin, while Putin — the big, important Putin — always consisted of Medvedev and himself?

Medvedev had some good intentions. Thank you, Dmitri Anatolyevich. But the page has turned.

Am I afraid that if I write something alarming and unflattering about the new-old president Putin — for example, that he is a soft dictator or that in 12 years (if he stays for two terms) Russia may be ripe for an Arab Spring-like revolution — I, a Russian writer, will get smacked on the head? No, I’m not afraid. For now.

Saturday began as usual. I took my six-year-old daughter Maya to the dentist to check how her baby teeth were coming, and then to the playground. At midday I learned that we’ll have Putin again. None of my friends called. That meant this was not news to any of them.

I too had heard that sometime over the summer, Putin and Medvedev went bicycling outside Moscow and that Medvedev looked stunned upon their return. Is that when it happened?

True, some continued waiting for a miracle; they thought that in his soul Putin wouldn’t want to continue carrying Russia for the next 12 years. It would be like driving a full oil tanker, very heavy and clumsy. But he apparently decided that nobody could handle the tanker better than he, and that power is sweet even if it stinks of oil.

Why, then, was anyone waiting for a miracle? Apparently because over the past two years Medvedev decided to try to move Russia closer to universal — or more accurately European — values, and Russia desperately needed this. He said “Russia, forward!”: He proposed modernization; condemned the criminal justice system, which still smacks of Stalin’s Gulag; renamed the militia the “police”; joined the Western coalition on Libya; and — well, etc. etc.

Yes, but Putin never ceased being No. 1. Putin can take different shapes. In his lifestyle, he is fully European. This is heartening. It is also heartening that he rehabilitated the White Russian movement and condemned Stalinist repression. Yet he clearly misses the former greatness of Soviet Russia. This is disheartening, especially to our neighbors.

Unlike Medvedev, Putin is likely to lead Russia not toward Europe, but along some roundabout “third way,” through various Venezuelas and other strange friends, and this way will not always appeal to the West. And what about bloodthirstiness? Will there be more Khodorkovskys? I don’t know.

What I do know is that Putin is more liberal in his views than 80 percent of the Russian population, which is more nationalistic and xenophobic than he is. Say what you want, but he is a shield against negative feelings in what is basically a very poor country. We don’t need revolutions from below. The liberal resources of Russia are laughably small and get smaller all the time, either because liberals don’t know how to deal with the Kremlin or because young liberals are fleeing to the West.

So if the hopes for a miracle are finished, let there be realpolitik. If Putin will be a pragmatist, good. Good also for me personally. If we can hang on to the personal freedoms that Putin gave us in the early 2000s, this won’t be so bad at all.

Still, the country’s morale is low — corruption has become a shameless way of life; there’s a lot of aggression. The head of Russia’s Communists, Gennady Zyuganov, recently declared that Russia has 20 times more murders than the European Union. Scary. In coming years Russians could start moving toward an ideological alliance of power and religion, à la Iran, and it could lead to unforeseen consequences. So, long live Putin the pragmatist! We don’t need Eastern ayatollahs.

The telephone remains silent. Nobody is reacting.

Russia watchers in the West cannot be surprised that Vladimir Putin is on his way back to the Russian presidency. Dmitri Medvedev was always his protégé, and there was no doubt that major decisions could not be made without his approval. This includes signing the New START arms control treaty, cooperating with NATO in Afghanistan and supporting U.N. sanctions on Iran — all of which should provide reassurance that Putin’s return won’t undo the most important accomplishments of the U.S.-Russia “reset.”

Yet the relationship with the West will inevitably change. For one thing, Putin can have nothing like the rapport his protégé developed with President Obama, which was built upon the two leaders’ shared backgrounds as lawyers, their easy adoption of new technologies, and their fundamentally modern worldviews.

The Bilateral Presidential Commission which Obama and Medvedev created and charged with advancing U.S.-Russia cooperation on everything from counterterrorism to health care may suffer. The relationship as a whole is not adequately institutionalized, and depends on the personal attention of Russian officials who will likely avoid taking action without clear direction from Putin, or who may be removed altogether during the transition.

Putin’s return to the presidency will also provide fodder for Western critics bent on portraying Obama and the reset as a failure, or dismissing Putin’s Russia as merely a retread of the Soviet Union.

These critics are wrong — today’s Russia bears little resemblance to what Ronald Reagan dubbed an “evil empire” — but Putin has been far more tolerant of Soviet nostalgia than his junior partner, and his next term will surely bring a new litany of quotations about Soviet accomplishments and Russia’s glorious destiny that will turn stomachs in the West.

Although he has spent his entire career within the apparatus of state power, including two decades in the state security services, Putin is at heart a C.E.O., with a businessman’s appreciation for the bottom line. Western companies already doing business in Russia can expect continuity in their dealings with the state, and it will remain in Russia’s interest to open doors to new business with Europe and the United States. The next key milestone for expanding commercial ties will be Russia’s planned accession to the World Trade Organization, which could come as soon as December.

At home, Putin faces a looming budget crisis. As the population ages and oil and gas output plateaus the government will be unable to continue paying pensions, meeting the growing demand for medical care, or investing in dilapidated infrastructure throughout the country’s increasingly depopulated regions.

This means that while Putin will seek to preserve Russia’s current economic model, which is based on resource extraction and export, he will be forced to assimilate many of his protégé’s ideas for modernizing Russia’s research and manufacturing sectors. Medvedev’s signature initiative, the Skolkovo “city of innovation,” will likely receive continuing support from the Kremlin, although it will have little long-term impact without a thorough nationwide crackdown on corruption and red tape.

Putin’s restored power will be strongly felt in Russia’s immediate neighborhood, which he has called Moscow’s “sphere of privileged interests.” Even though Kiev has renewed Russia’s lease on the Black Sea Fleet’s Sevastopol base through 2042 and reversed nearly all of the previous government’s anti-Russian language and culture policies, Ukraine is unlikely to win a reprieve from high Russian gas prices. Putin will also continue to press Ukraine to join the Russia-dominated customs union in which Kazakhstan and Belarus already participate. He may also take advantage of Belarus’s deepening economic isolation and unrest to oust President Aleksandr Lukashenko in favor of a more reliable Kremlin ally.

Putin and Medvedev have been equally uncompromising toward Georgia. Both are openly contemptuous of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, and it is unlikely that any progress on relations can occur until Georgia’s presidential transition in 2013.

Putin has good reason to continue backing NATO operations in Afghanistan to help stem the flow of drugs, weapons and Islamism into Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Russia itself. Moreover, as China extends its economic hegemony into Central Asia, he may find America to be a welcome ally.

Putin appreciates the advantages of pragmatic partnerships and will seek to preserve the influence of traditional groupings like the U.N. Security Council and the G-8 while at the same time promoting alternatives like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Brics.

The succession from Putin to Medvedev and back again was decided behind closed doors, and the formal transition of power is likely to take place with similar discipline. This should offer the West and the wider world some reassurance. Putin’s return to the presidency is far from the democratic ideal, but it is not the end of “reset.” Many ordinary Russians support him because he represents stability and continuity of the status quo and, for now, that is mostly good for Russia’s relations with the West.

Three years ago this month, after Russian military forces invaded Georgia, the U.S.-Russia relationship reached its lowest point, at least since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Bush administration virtually froze relations for its last five months in the White House.

President Obama and his team took office in January 2009 and soon signaled their interest in improving ties with Moscow. The main reasons are well known: need of Russian support in trying to curtail Iran’s nuclear weapons program; increasing U.S. military presence in Afghanistan; and return to a more multilateral approach in nuclear arms control and security.

Despite considerable skepticism in Moscow and Washington, Obama and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev have made significant progress in restoring the bilateral relationship with important achievements on all the issues above as well as a number of others.

In recent months, however, critical voices in both countries have grown louder about prospects for further rapprochement. Skeptics point to disagreements over missile defense, the revolutionary events in the Middle East, the seemingly never-ending negotiations over Russia’s W.T.O. accession and other issues. Some analysts and political figures in both countries also cite the possibility that Vladimir Putin will return as Russia’s president in 2012 as a threat to future cooperation.

But unlike the two previous U.S.-Russian honeymoons, both of which ended in disappointment — in 1991-1992 after the emergence of the new Russia, and in 2001-2002 after 9/11 — the current warming trend should be more sustainable.

To understand why, it is instructive to understand the Russian motivations for improved ties with Washington, and also the likely impact of Russian presidential elections on ties with Washington.

Until the autumn of 2008, the mainstream Russian view — expounded by Putin — was of the United States in decline as economic troubles mounted and setbacks in Afghanistan and Iraq sapped U.S. power. By contrast, Russia was on the rise, and a truly multipolar world was emerging.

The unexpected impact of the global economic crisis on Russia in the fall of 2008 struck a blow to this narrative, revealing as it did the vulnerability of Russia’s economic growth. The Russian economy was the hardest hit of all members of the Group of 20, and this sobering event led to renewed efforts to integrate with the West in order to advance the modernization of Russia.

Russian elites also began to acknowledge that the balance of global economic and political power may not be shifting in their favor. After the dust settled from the fall of 2008, Moscow viewed China as having come out on top. After years of focusing on the United States as the source of dangers to Russia, Moscow has become increasingly concerned about the rapid development of China and its growing influence in Russia, especially in Siberia and the Far East, and in Central Asia, the Caspian and other areas that Medvedev has dubbed Russia’s “zone of privileged interests.”

The Russian elections will not fundamentally alter these challenges for Russia. History suggests that American policies will be a far greater factor than Russian politics in shaping Russian policies toward the United States.

The Russian assessment of America’s power and role in the world did not change because Medvedev replaced Putin as president; it changed because of the global economic crisis and Washington’s policies.

Vladimir Putin, contrary to conventional wisdom, is not deeply opposed to U.S. interests. In 2001-2002, Putin pursued his own version of a “reset” in American-Russian relations, and his foreign-policy orientation at that time was at least as amenable to U.S. interests as Medvedev’s today.

True, Russia’s confidence strengthened as its economy recovered, but Moscow’s disappointment with the policies of the George W. Bush administration was a greater factor in Putin’s increasing willingness to oppose Washington. So the possibility of Putin becoming president again — and I have no idea whether he will — should not be feared in Washington.

The Russians are aware of the current fiscal problems in the United States, and the questions about whether the U.S. political system is capable of managing them. They are also closely watching whether the United States has the political commitment to stabilize Afghanistan.

The Russian elites are unsure about the durability of U.S. power, but they have seen the United States renew itself in the wake of global and economic setbacks in the past.

If the United States succeeds in making progress on these fronts and, more importantly, continues to pursue pragmatic policies that accommodate some of Russia’s core interests, the current trend toward cooperation will continue. Or, to put it another way, we are the critical variable in this equation.

Twenty years ago this month, the Soviet Union — the last of the great 20th century empires — started to crumble following the ill-advised putsch of August 1991. Within two years, it had vanished altogether.

Compared to the prolonged and bloody demises of the British and French empires, the Soviet Union’s collapse was remarkably calm. The “Commonwealth of Independent States” (C.I.S.), which many people mistook for a new name for the Soviet Union — and some dubbed “a fresh edition of the Russian empire” — accomplished the mission of making sure that the dissolution of the U.S.S.R. was one of the most peaceful and least violent imperial exits in history.

It was able to do so because the Russian Federation, counterintuitively, did and has done little to attempt to hold on to its “near abroad.” It has had few resources to spare, and no will to subdue.

The regional integrative bodies that did emerge in the post-Soviet space — such as the customs union of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia, or the Collective Security Treaty Organization (C.S.T.O.), which also includes Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan — have been pragmatic arrangements that cannot be compared to E.U./NATO or the defunct Comecon/Warsaw Pact.

Much has been made, in the wake of the 2008 Georgia war, of President Dmitri Medvedev’s formulation of Russian “zones of privileged interests.” But today these may be said to include only two areas — Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Three years after the war in the Caucasus, not a single member of the C.S.T.O. has followed Russia’s recognition of Abkhaz and South Ossetian statehood. In this part of the world, sovereignty means, above all, independence from Moscow.

As for the 25 million or so ethnic Russians who were left behind throughout the former Soviet borderlands, Moscow has done next to nothing to get them out of civil conflicts, as in Tajikistan or Kyrgyzstan, to speak nothing of supporting irredentism where Russians form a majority, as in Crimea. The Kremlin has only paid lip service to upholding ethnic Russian citizenship claims in Estonia and Latvia, and not even that in Turkmenistan.

In fact, Russia’s foreign policy has served to push these countries away from its imperial embrace and toward greater independence. Despite ritual declarations that C.I.S. is its top priority, Moscow has pointedly refused to invest in creating “a better union.” In the mid-2000s, Gazprom drastically hiked prices for its former Soviet customers, bringing them to the European level, and the Russian Parliament passed a restrictive citizenship law ending privileges for former Soviet passport holders. At a stroke, the former Soviet Union ceased to exist: “near abroad” became simply “abroad.”

Russia’s remarkable disinterest in its former empire has been paralleled by the other former Soviet republics distancing themselves from the former imperial center. Several have proclaimed a European vision or vocation. Others reaffirmed Muslim roots and focused on their neighborhoods. A couple have gone into isolation.

Russia has taken it all in stride. Since the termination of the “ruble zone” in 1993, its economic links with former Soviet republics have been slackening. The C.I.S. now accounts for a mere 15 percent of Russia’s foreign trade.

The problem for students of Soviet affairs has been what to call this former Soviet space. With the vantage of 20 years, it can be said that three distinct regions have formed.

One is the New Eastern Europe: Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova. Kiev and Chisinau have proclaimed a European orientation, which has survived changes of governments. As for Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko has made his country so different from its neighbors that he has effectively set the foundation of Belarusian independence — something early Belarusian nationalists, with their Russophobia, might not have managed. When the Belarusians finally have their say, they are likely to also opt for Europe.

Another region is the South Caucasus. Some would like to see it as South-east Europe. Tbilisi is certainly poised that way. Georgia’s road to Europe will be difficult, but the future of Azerbaijan and Armenia is even less certain. Like New Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus will be on its own for quite a while, wedged as it is between the European Union, Turkey, Iran and Russia.

Central Asia is the third new grouping. There, “Eurasianness” applies only to Kazakhstan, due to its ethnic composition and cultural and religious diversity. The rest is “Middle Asia,” as Soviet geographers once called it: Islamic revival and the proximity to the Middle East and China have reshaped a part of the world that formerly was a Russian and then Soviet backyard.

Finally, there’s Russia itself. Culturally European, it is not, politically, of Europe. It abuts Asia, but to many Asians it has become irrelevant. It can hardly be integrated into Europe, and cannot or will not integrate others within the C.I.S.

Paradoxically, this may be for the better. If Russian society can find the energy and will to exit from its current atomized condition and start building a post-imperial nation-state, Russia will find its place on the global map as a Euro-Pacific nation and draw its strength from that.

With links multiplying between the E.U. on the one hand and China, India, Japan, Korea on the other, and with Russia and its neighbors in the middle, a new Eurasia is emerging, no longer dominated by a single power and for the first time living up to its geographical name.

Twenty years ago this weekend, a group of Communist Party Politburo members and Soviet government officials attempted a coup d’état. They created an unconstitutional “committee on the state of emergency,” isolated the Soviet president and removed him from power.

The events of that August were the result of fierce political struggle during the final stretch in our efforts to reform the Soviet Union.

During the years of perestroika, major changes transformed our country. The people supported glasnost; free, contested elections; and the beginning of the transition to market economics. But the bureaucracies of the Communist Party and the government eventually saw in those changes threats to their position.

Changes on such a scale in a country that is so vast, multi-ethnic, militarized and totalitarian were not easy. Admittedly, we leaders of perestroika made our share of mistakes. We acted too late to reform the Communist Party, which became a brake on perestroika instead of being its engine; its bodies launched an attack on me as its general secretary that reached its peak at the party’s central committee meeting in April 1991. The attack became so vicious that I announced my resignation.

The announcement surprised the organizers of the campaign against me, who thought they could force me to approve emergency measures to resolve the severe problems that we faced in the process of reforms. After meeting for several hours, the Politburo asked me to withdraw my resignation and return to the session. I now think I made a mistake agreeing to their request. I should have gone all the way, since attempts to oust me, in one form or another, were ongoing.

In July, Prime Minister Valentin Pavlov, Defense Minister Dmitry Yazov and Vladimir Kryuchkov, chairman of the KGB, addressed the legislature, calling for emergency measures and for transferring some powers of the president to the prime minister. They did it in my absence: I was at a meeting at the president’s official residence of the commission preparing the new Union Treaty between the Soviet republics.

The next day I told the legislature that I was against “emergency solutions,” and its members supported me.

In an open political fight, the opponents of perestroika lost. People had become citizens; they supported change even when the going got tough. We had prepared an anti-crisis economic program, which all the republics, including the Baltic states, were ready to implement. The draft Union Treaty was to be signed on Aug. 20. A special congress of the party was scheduled to convene in the fall, and it was likely to divide the party between reformers and conservatives.

We planned, after the Union Treaty was signed, to conduct elections, and we were planning major changes in the Soviet Union’s leadership. I discussed this with Russian President Boris Yeltsin and President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan right before leaving for a brief vacation in the Crimea in early August.

I was burned out from months of tough battles, but I underestimated the resistance of reactionary forces. I should have postponed my vacation.

On Aug. 18, I spoke by phone with my assistants and with Yeltsin to finalize details of the treaty ceremony. I was planning to fly to Moscow on Aug. 19 to attend the signing, but an uninvited group showed up at my residence. Minutes before the delegation of the coup plotters arrived, all my phones — the city line, official telephones and the strategic communications line — went dead. I was totally isolated. It became clear that my opponents in the Politburo and the government had chosen the path of a coup d’état.

I told my family that the situation posed grave dangers to our country and ourselves and that I did not know how things might end. I said that I would not agree to any collusion with those people. My wife, Raisa, and our family said that they would stand by me come what may.

The delegation demanded that I temporarily cede my powers to Vice President Gennady Yanayev or resign. I categorically refused and demanded a convening of the Congress of People’s Deputies or a session of the Supreme Soviet.

Some have alleged that I was trying to wait it out, hoping to win regardless of how things went; these allegations are false and slanderous.

My reply to the coup plotters dealt the first blow to their plans. Equally important was the fact that they were unable to intimidate the people. Our society had learned to resist, to protest and make demands. President Yeltsin took a strong stand, condemning the putsch and calling the actions of the plotters a coup d’état. I appreciated and praised Yeltsin’s actions during those days.

Participants in the conspiracy said, and some still say, that they wanted to save our union. But, as I said from the start, they ended up destroying the country. Although the coup collapsed three days later, it damaged the principle of a common state, speeding the republics’ “run on the Union” — a process that Russia’s leaders had initiated long before the putsch. One after another, the republics began declaring independence.

The situation we faced was indeed grave. But we were able to convene the Congress of People’s Deputies, which approved preparation of another draft of the Union Treaty, based on the concept of a confederative state. We ran into all kinds of problems, but we soon had a new draft and began presenting it to the republics.

Once again, the prospect existed that we could work together to end the crisis. Had it not been for the collusion of the leaders of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, meeting at Belovezhskaya Pushcha, the new treaty could have been signed before the end of 1991. The union, which would have been known as the Union of Sovereign States, would have been saved — in a different form, and with much greater rights to the republics.

Had that happened, I am convinced that economic reforms would then have been less painful, the collapse of industrial production would have been avoided and the dangerous decline in Russians’ living standards would not have occurred.

Over the past 20 years, Russia has gone through many hardships. The price of freedom turned out to be much higher, and the road to it much more difficult, than what we assumed when we embarked on that path. Even now, we are only halfway to stable democracy. But we have no other course.

The coming years must become a period of faster movement forward. To make it happen, we must unite all those in our society who support further political, economic, social and cultural change in Russia.

I believe it is possible. The opportunity is at hand, and we must not miss it.

The plot was hatched at a bathhouse in downtown Moscow. At midmorning on Saturday, Aug. 17, 1991, the head of the K.G.B., Vladimir A. Kryuchkov, summoned five senior Soviet officials for a highly secretive meeting that he told them would be vital for the future of the U.S.S.R.

Wrapped in towels in the steam room, and later while cooling down over vodka and Scotch, the half-dozen die-hard Communist apparatchiks outlined a plan to overthrow the Soviet government. For the Soviet spymaster, the prime minister, defense minister and the other paunchy, half-naked co-conspirators, the stakes could not have been higher. And they had to act quickly.

The country was in a shambles, and the chaos of democracy and nationalism threatened to destroy it entirely, the K.G.B. chief warned. The Baltic states had already moved toward independence and something had to be done to silence Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin, the noisy, newly elected president of the Russian republic, whose belligerent, man-of-the-people style made him by far the most popular politician in the country, mainly because of his attacks on the privileges of the Communist Party elite.

Likewise, the coup plotters insisted, the weak and spineless Soviet president and party boss, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, had to go. He had proposed signing a new treaty that would turn the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics into a looser federation of autonomous states, most of which intended to turn their backs on socialism. The treaty would mean the end of the U.S.S.R., and that could not be tolerated.

A plan was hastily formulated. One group of conspirators flew to Crimea, where Mr. Gorbachev was on vacation, with the goal of forcing him to abandon the treaty or resign. If he refused, a regiment of K.G.B. troops would hold him captive indefinitely at his seaside villa. The others would stay in Moscow, ready to take over the levers of power and use force to assert their authority if challenged.

A list was drawn up of the names of 200 people who would be immediately arrested, the first of whom was Yeltsin. The Lefortovo prison in Moscow was emptied in preparation for new prisoners, and 250,000 pairs of handcuffs were ordered to be sent to Moscow from a factory in Pskov.

Not one of the conspirators counseled caution or seemed to consider the law of unintended consequences: within a few days their ill-prepared coup attempt would bring forward all that they feared most. Their “patriotic action” would once and for all remove their beloved U.S.S.R. from the map.

The coup was a fiasco from the start. Mr. Gorbachev refused to resign or to shun the treaty. At dawn on Aug. 19, Muscovites woke to the announcement on radio and TV that an Emergency Committee had been formed to govern the country. Then, for several hours, the state-controlled airwaves went dead — except for a continuous loop of “Swan Lake” that played for hours. Most Muscovites were unaffected by the coup; their principal memories of it are the sound of Tchaikovsky.

The drama was confined to one small area — around the White House in Moscow, home of Russia’s Parliament — and lasted a few hours. The bungling putschists failed to arrest any of their targets or to control communications, and soldiers refused to fire on the crowds outside the White House.

To his own amazement, Yeltsin was not apprehended at the start of the operation. Indeed, the central image of the August coup is of a brave and vigorous Yeltsin climbing onto a tank to make a defiant statement denouncing the plotters. And he retained a telephone line enabling him to coordinate his support. This stirring scene was foolishly allowed to be shown on TV that evening, turning the obscure Yeltsin into a figure of world significance overnight.

The joke swiftly went around Moscow that you knew Communism must be through in Russia when the Bolsheviks couldn’t even mount a proper coup. At a news conference that evening, the nominal head of the Emergency Committee, the Soviet vice president, Gennadi I. Yanayev, was seen in public for the first time. A gray 53-year-old bureaucrat with nicotine-stained fingers and a shiny suit, he was visibly drunk. When he told the lie that Mr. Gorbachev was ill, his hands shook and his hairpiece began to slip.

For all the tragedy and farce of those three August days, the world has plenty for which to thank the incompetent conspirators who hastened the fall of an empire. Less than a week after the coup fizzled, two of its leaders killed themselves, the others were in jail and the Communist Party they sought to save was banned. Yeltsin, the party’s principal assassin, was the most powerful man in the country.

For a generation, the failure of Soviet Communism had been evident for all to see. The great experiment that once bred idealism ended in food lines and prison camps. Marx believed that man could be made perfect; Communists found that people had an irritating way of refusing to be perfected.

Yet despite the revolutions in Eastern Europe in 1989, hardly anyone in the summer of 1991 predicted that the U.S.S.R. itself would fall apart by the end of the year. It might have limped on for decades, as the Ottoman Empire did in the late 19th century, dying slowly amid civil wars. Yet the second most powerful country in the world simply withered away, not in the classical Marxist sense, but it literally ceased to exist. And the manner of its going was one of the best things. The Soviet people destroyed the Soviet Union, not outsiders, and not through violent conflict.

BUT what followed has not been a democratic idyll. Despite the putsch’s failure, some Soviet residue remains — a “coup culture” that breeds a winner-take-all view of politics. In Russia today, there is no concept of a loyal opposition, no separation of powers, no mass participation in political life and a news media that is far from free.

There was a fleeting opportunity for liberal democracy and genuine free markets to emerge in Russia after the Soviet Union collapsed. But Yeltsin did little to develop civil society, the rule of law, the emergence of viable political parties or a modernized economy after the failed 1991 coup. A few people became very rich, adopting methods reminiscent of, but even more ruthless than, the 19th-century robber barons in the United States. But a middle class with a stake in how the country is run barely exists.

Yeltsin’s corrupt cronyism encouraged a gangster capitalism from which Russia is still suffering. But the few years that he and Mr. Gorbachev led the country together seem today a halcyon period for freedom in Russia.

Yeltsin’s handpicked successor, Vladimir V. Putin, reversed the few fledgling democratic reforms that had been made, turning Russia into a country that merely goes through the motions of democracy every few years while power remains concentrated in the same hands. Mr. Putin replaced a one-party state with a one-clique state of people around him — a pattern replicated elsewhere in the former Soviet Union — financed almost entirely by booming oil and gas revenues.

Today, he is one of the few to lament the Soviet Union’s passing. Mr. Putin, who in 1991 was a middle-ranking intelligence officer in St. Petersburg, left the K.G.B. during the coup. To him the collapse of the U.S.S.R. was “a major geopolitical disaster of the century.”

But for the millions who had to endure life under the Soviet yoke — born in bloodshed and kept alive for decades through intimidation — its end was long overdue.

Still, 20 years later, as Mr. Putin’s continuing influence and popularity attest, the traditional Russian ideal of a strongman in the Kremlin remains. And depressing as it is, if dire economic times come again, a coup d’état still seems as likely a way as any for political change to occur in Russia or many former Soviet states. The Bolsheviks may have disappeared for good when Yeltsin climbed atop a tank in August 1991, but the legacy of authoritarian rule lingers.

In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union “the evil empire.” A fast-food commercial featured a matronly Russian woman in a drab, ill-fitting outfit. “Day wear,” droned the Russian-accented announcer. The woman shone a flashlight to turn the outfit into “evening wear” and carried a beach ball for “swimwear.”

Back then, we didn’t hold a high opinion of the Soviet Union.

We didn’t realize that the Soviet Union’s people held it in similar low regard. It seemed more of a surprise to us than to them that their country imploded in late August 1991.

I happened to be visiting the Soviet Union during those historic days 20 years ago. On Aug. 19, our group heard that President Mikhail Gorbachev had disappeared. The truth soon came clear: There was a coup to halt his reforms. On Aug. 22, Mr. Gorbachev reappeared. In a shocking payback on Aug. 24, he terminated Soviet communism. Ukraine seized the opportunity to declare independence, and other Soviet republics followed in the weeks to come. Things never would be the same in the Soviet Union or in the world.

Looking back, I recall that we Americans took the dramatic events more seriously than the locals. They wondered why we asked to watch TV. We said we wanted news. The locals laughed; they knew that when something unsettling happened, Soviet TV aired the “Swan Lake” ballet.

We learned to garner information the same way the locals did – via shortwave radio. In Kiev the day the coup started, we joined the crowd at October Revolution Square, where people huddled around shortwaves, catching news from the BBC and Voice of America.

We Americans presumed a people’s uprising was brewing. We agreed to let our guide show us the Kiev sights if we could return to the square in the evening. When we returned, there was no uprising. In fact, there were hardly any people.

A couple of days after Kiev, I became a houseguest in Kharkov. I asked my hosts why we Americans seemed more upset by the coup than did the local people. “It’s because we have lived through so much that our souls are empty,” the husband told me.

Over my days in Kharkov, I heard perspectives on the coup and whether the Soviet Union should stay together. Importantly, I realized that people would continue to live their daily lives, no matter how the coup resolved or whether the Soviet republics stayed together. I heard a lot of talk about “democracy,” though no one had much idea about how to make it happen or what to do with it when they got it.

On Aug. 24, I was dining with as many people as we could fit around the table in a Kharkov flat. We turned on the 9 p.m. newscast, learning of Ukraine’s declaration of independence. Our host opened a bottle of champagne. One guest became glum. “We will have chaos and even worse economic conditions if the Ukraine breaks away,” she said. A little later, the phone rang with news from the shortwave of the end of the Soviet Union’s Communist Party, which had dictated the only life my hosts had ever known.

Since those remarkable days, I have met more people of the former Soviet Union. I’ve seen people struggle to emerge from the turmoil of August 1991 as winners. I’ve also seen perplexed people unable to function in their new world. Americans may think everyone naturally grasps democracy and free enterprise, but this is not so. Democracy and free enterprise are learned skills. They require initiative and personal responsibility, not encouraged in the Soviet Union.

Today, 15 new countries work on nation-building and new relationships, including with us. Reinventing themselves is a long, contentious process. A new generation is coming to the fore with a fresh outlook. American assistance is providing invaluable nation-building education. It is an effective contribution and quieter, cheaper and safer than Afghan-istan, Iraq and the “Arab Spring.”

People-to-people communication has led us to regard residents of the former Soviet Union more highly than we did two decades ago. They hold a higher opinion of themselves as well. It’s not just outward appearances; with consumerism and Internet access, there’s no more drab apparel posing as “swimwear” for them. Inwardly, progress and hope are replenishing even drained souls.

Hace hoy 20 años, el 19 de agosto de 1991, Mijaíl Gorbachov veraneaba, tras un año intenso, en la península de Crimea cuando recibió la visita de unos enviados del autoconstituido Comité para el Estado de Excepción. Le conminaban a presentar su dimisión. Se invocaba, con gran catastrofismo, una situación de desgobierno, una pésima economía, una descomposición del Estado y un enorme deterioro del sistema.

El hombre que seis años antes había asumido la Secretaría General del PCUS pretendió introducir reformas importantes en una estructura de poder político y económico anquilosado. El edificio comunista, petrificado, presentaba grietas profundas. La tragedia de Chernóbil un año después era una metáfora de cómo las grietas del reactor nuclear (obsoleto como casi toda la industria soviética) eran las grietas de un sistema arcaico y basado en retóricas propagandísticas carentes de verdad y libertad.

Gorbachov no se había propuesto democratizar el país sino sólo -pero nada menos- introducir reformas de apertura y modernización que permitiesen mantener el edificio comunista. Fue valiente al impulsar la perestroika y la glásnost. Liberó a represaliados (entre ellos el físico Sajarov) y fue comprensivo con los movimientos nacionalistas. En el caso de los satélites, dos años antes fue decisiva su posición de sustituir la doctrina Breznev (de intervención en los países socialistas que pretendiesen evolucionar por sí mismos) por la doctrina Sinatra (por la canción My Way que permitiese que cada país fuese autónomo para decidir su futuro). Su no intervención desde el Kremlin, unida al papel fundamental de Juan Pablo II, hicieron posible que el muro cayese. Era un dique menos.

En la URSS, sin embargo, la fuerte oposición interna hizo que el Gorby reformista pactase en 1990 con los sectores más ortodoxos del comunismo. Se rodeó de personajes que meses después protagonizarían el golpe de Estado. Entre los siete miembros de ese comité estaban personajes promovidos por él como el vicepresidente de la URSS, el primer ministro, el ministro de Defensa, el de Interior y el director de la KGB.

Pero, a pesar de estar involucrados todos estos sectores, el golpe adoleció de graves errores. Entre otros, no impedir que los medios pudiesen retransmitir en directo cómo los tanques rodeaban el Parlamento y cómo se formaba un escudo humano cada vez más numeroso. La orden dada a los cuerpos de elite para la toma violenta del edificio fue desobedecida. Allí, a diferencia de Tiannanmén, había televisiones y la masacre en directo hubiera sido de miles de personas. El ejército, además, se sentía humillado tras su retirada dos años antes del avispero de Afganistán.

Otro de los errores fue no impedir que los opositores a los golpistas encabezasen una revolución. Boris Yeltsin, entonces presidente de la república de Rusia, emergería como nuevo líder. La imagen del hombre de pelo plateado subido a uno de los tanques arengando al pueblo queda en la iconografía de la historia. Su oposición a los golpistas tenía bases tanto liberales como nacionalistas genuinamente rusas. El momento fue aprovechado por otras Repúblicas como las bálticas, Estonia, Lituania y Letonia, para declarar la recuperación de su soberanía. Ucrania, Moldavia y Bielorrusia también declararían su independencia inmediatamente. No puede dejar de advertirse que en un intento de mantener unida a la URSS con ciertas reformas, estaba pendiente de firmar -precisamente al día siguiente del golpe- un nuevo Tratado de la Unión.

La intentona se fue deshinchando y Gorbachov volvería tres días después a «un país que ya no era el mismo», según declararía en Moscú. Su regreso no se produjo en el avión presidencial (utilizado por los golpistas en un último vuelo a Crimea) sino en uno enviado por Rusia. Gorbachov dejaba de ser prisionero de los golpistas pero se convertía en rehén político del hombre que abortó el golpe, Yeltsin.

El presidente de la URSS reconocería sus errores pero frente a la firmeza del nuevo líder, él, que había sido víctima de los sectores más ortodoxos, se opuso a las medidas de prohibición del Partido Comunista, confiscación de los bienes y depuración de los actores más inmovilistas. El mundo había cambiado vertiginosamente. Él ya empezaba a ser historia. El golpe de Estado contra él no tuvo éxito pero arrastraría a su víctima. Además, se produjo algo inaudito: el golpe fracasó pero el resultado es que el propio Estado se acabaría desintegrando. El que había sido el mayor imperio del siglo XX se desmoronó en cuatro meses. El 25 de diciembre de 1991 se firmó el acta de defunción.

Boris Yeltsin, como heredero de Rusia, intentó impulsar medidas reformistas pero el país vivía instalado en el caos y el desorden, con una economía muy débil, con desabastecimiento de bienes, una altísima inflación y en suspensión de pagos. Los intentos liberalizadores chocaban con los recelos de los sectores comunistas todavía instalados en el Parlamento. El desgobierno era grande y el día 31 de diciembre de 1999, Yeltsin convocaría inesperadamente una rueda de prensa para anunciar que dimitía y designaba su sucesor en Vladimir Putin, promovido meses antes como primer ministro.

Putin aprendió bien de los errores de sus antecesores. Supo recuperar la nostalgia del orgullo perdido. Un pueblo que había sido una potencia y se sentía humillado. Para ello, recuperó incluso símbolos del pasado soviético cercano. Y, sobre todo, ofreció seguridades, algo que los ciudadanos soviéticos tenían antes (no pagaban calefacción o gas y todo estaba ordenado) y que empezaron a perder con Gorbachov y Yeltsin. A ello hay que unir una prosperidad económica notable por el precio de los crudos y una inteligente política de alianzas y enfrentamientos energéticos, sustituyéndose el poder ideológico por el poder económico.

Junto a ellos, en las sombras actuales está el adormecimiento de la sociedad civil, la generalización de la corrupción, la limitación de libertades y el funcionamiento de la vertical del poder donde numerosos cargos territoriales, judiciales… dependen del ejecutivo. Los rusos, poco acostumbrados a la libertad (antes del represor sistema soviético vivían en la dictadura feudal del zarismo), prefieren sacrificar libertades que para los occidentales son básicas en aras a conseguir seguridades y orden.

En diciembre habrá elecciones para la Duma y en marzo las esperadas presidenciales donde aún algunos mantienen la duda sobre si el candidato será el actual Medvedev o Putin. Este ha mantenido, como primer ministro, gran poder pero ¿por qué no recuperar todo? Mientras un país emergente como Rusia mira más hacia Asia que hacia Europa, nos encontramos, 20 años después, que junto a la recuperación de la madre Rusia, otros de los 14 estados surgidos viven suertes diferentes, con democracias consolidadas como las bálticas, a situaciones de estancamiento (las cinco repúblicas de Asia Central) o incluso regresión (Bielorrusia), o turbulencias como las de Ucrania que representó una decepcionante revolución naranja que se quedó pronto sin vitaminas.

Dos décadas después, Europa, en una gran crisis económica y de valores, contempla cómo algunos de los estados ex soviéticos surgidos hace 20 años (como Kazajistán y Azerbaiyán), mantienen regímenes insuficientemente democráticos pero con economías potentísimas al máximo nivel en el mundo. Paradojas.