Whether Ivan the Terrible or Stalin, authoritarianism has defined Russia’s rule. The end of communist Soviet Union was a real revolution, but the tradition of authoritarianism and lack of transparency has pervaded. The new Russia, or at least a significant portion of it, now seeks a true break from the Czars and Comrades. Vladimit Putin seems too much a perpetuation of those old orders. The more than dozen years of de-facto Putin rule have seen the restoration of Russian global influence to a degree and the commodities boom has helped many Russians avoid economic pain even as national wealth was lost to oligarchs, corruption, or simple ineptness and waste. However, for many Russians their vision of the future is no longer blurred by the past and empires lost. If iron fist leadership is the way to regain global influence and empire, many Russians are no longer willing to pay the price of such authoritarianism at home. Perhaps most unacceptable is the packaging of the message and news that goes along with despotism – many are no longer willing to revert to such a society 20+ years after the Soviet Union having tasted being part of a more forward leaning society. The politics of personality cult rather than impress charisma seem to imply the corrosive effect of perpetual hold on political and economic levers of power. The murder of journalists in their midst, skinhead attacks on minorities and new political and economic stratifications signals to many Russians that further transformation is necessary and that perhaps new leadership and methodologies will be necessary to make the next leap forward. The American Revolution really took a couple of centuries to bloom into full democracy – Native American were subjected to another century+ of genocidal campaigns. African American continued to be enslaved for almost 90 years after the Declaration of Independence and then subjected to another century of official discrimination. Women did not gain the vote until a century earlier. Many of us think that the American Revolution continues – threatened by reactionary who sells the past as false panacea and challenged by the demands of the future. Russia has the natural resources, the educated population and critical mass to be a global leader, without necessarily concentrated power. It may still be a minority, but the demand for change in Russia does not come necessarily from revolutionaries or reactionaries seeking the revival of Bolshevism. It is neither just the protest of the poor. Rather, it is the demands of middle and educated classes who perceive that they have outgrown the czars, comrades, oligarchs and strongmen. Read: - “Russia Journalist Murders” - diplomaticallyincorrect.org/films/blog_post/russia-journalist-murders-by-susan-sacirbey/43033 Facebook – Become a Fan at “Doplomatically Incorrect” Twitter – Follow us at DiplomaticallyX War Crimes Justice Channel - diplomaticallyincorrect.org/c/war-crimes-justice