The more Russian leaders pontificate about the importance of democracy and the more they swear to protect democratic values and principles, the less democracy is left in real Russian life. When Moscow bade farewell to the outstanding Russian democrat and reformer Boris Yeltsin last month, many ordinary people said it was not just Yeltsin who was being buried in the Novodevichy cemetery but Russian freedom itself.

Young Russian democracy has been almost completely destroyed under President Vladimir Putin. But have Russians so easily parted with their freedom and constitutional rights? Have we thrown away our freedom like a boring toy or was it stolen from us one long winter night? Neither the former nor the latter; freedom was simply exchanged. In an unprecedented deal, freedom was pawned in return for economic growth and growth of personal income. In the past seven years, Russia’s GDP has increased almost 60 per cent and citizens’ income has doubled. That’s why Russians are so tolerant of the loss of civil and social rights.

In the years of Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, Russians welcomed the principles of free information, openness, and independent journalism and publishing. On Russian television political talk shows that presented diverse opinion and criticism of the government flourished. Now that’s all in the past. Television has turned into a tabloid-style “Kremlin TV.”

And yet, despite this authoritarian crackdown, Putin’s approval ratings continue to soar at about 80 per cent. A recent poll showed that 65 per cent of Russians want him to serve a third term. That would require a constitutional amendment, which Federation Council Speaker Sergey Mironov advocates. As in Communist China, Russian authorities have drawn their legitimacy from strong economic growth. The bicycle frame of Russian authoritarianism stays upright as long as the economic wheels spin quickly.

But divisions and tensions are growing, as is the level of political and social protest. To answer these challenges, Russia needs change. Democratic institutions must be revived to place the government under effective control and reduce corruption. Urgent structural reforms are needed in the economy as well as an active anti-monopoly policy to inspire openness and competition. The social sphere needs urgent efforts to improve “human capital” and lower the level of social stratification, poverty, and injustice. The petrol-fuelled authoritarianism of former KGB officers can hardly be relied on to realise the need for this programme or to carry it out in practice.

So in Russia we have to go on with our efforts to convince our people to be more active and demand changes. Stability and prosperity are impossible in Russia without freedom. It is time to take back our freedom and our rights from the Kremlin pawnshop. Economic growth will be achieved far better by the hands and minds of free people than by the frenzied blows of police batons. — The Christian Science Monitor