Quote Originally Posted by RusskiSlav
As we all know (hopefully ) Russian hosted the G8 Summit this year in St. Petersburg. Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, is a former KGB colonel who was stationed in East Germany. He's probably a communist at heart, and if he isn't he's got a funny was of showing it: he's revised the Russian constitution to expand government control on everything, including the media, and limit public voting for office. He's slowly turning the country back to Soviet times. In fact, he called the collapse of the USSR "the worst political disaster of the century" or something along those lines. Those weren't his exact words but it was the same general idea--he's not happy the Soviet Union is no more, and unless something can be done to stop what he's done to the political situation in Russia, a Soviet-like regime may be back

Any thoughts on any of this?
I completely agree, what the collapse of the USSR was a worst political disaster of the century.
I don't think, what Putin is "slowly turning the country back to Soviet times", however. Because:

- in Soviet times, there was no open multi-party system (and one-party system was even declared in Soviet constitution until 1990). Now, the parties and social movements are really countless.
- in Soviet times were no free alternative elections (and almost no elections at all, only 100% formal elections of the deputies of the Supreme Council). Now there are lots of elections, with are alternative: there are typically up to 10 candidates to President's post, and 20-30 parties/movements participating in Duma elections.
- there was almost no freedom of speech and non-government media did not exist. Now, there is a lot of private newspapers, radio and TV companies.
- finally, there was almost no economical freedom -- and now there are a lot of private and partially private companies and corporations.

So, where's the "turning back to the USSR"? Putin is smart enough not to repeat mistakes of the old...