Garry Kasparov: Russian democracy is a farce. Putin wants the same fate for America

By Dilip -
The Kremlin bullied and bribed Russians to the ballot box again on Wednesday, the latest episode of what long ago became a painful mockery of democracy. Democracy means choices, and there has been no real choice in Russia for many years. All roads, all votes, lead to Vladimir Putin. The plebiscite was on changing the Russian constitution to, among other things, allow Putin to stay in power until 2036. 

Of course, "allow" is a silly word to use when Putin was always going to rule the Kremlin until he's carried out, no matter what any piece of paper says. Even this formality was a foregone conclusion; the new constitution was available for purchase on newsstands and bookstores for days ahead of the vote. Early analysis from statistician Sergey Shpilkin shows an estimated 22 million fake votes out of a reported 74 million cast.

It's fair to ask, why bother with the pretense of democracy? Dictatorships are obsessed with the superficial trappings of legitimacy and democracy, both as distraction and to sully the meaning of these terms. And after decades of liquidating the opposition and crushing all dissent, a despot might even enjoy thinking that he's as popular as the worthless polls, elections and state media say he is.

These sham votes aren't only to provide Putin with cover in Russia, where civil society barely exists, but to give foreign leaders the pretext of treating Putin like an equal instead of confronting him like the autocrat he is. It also allows foreign media to continue calling him "president," putting him on par with the leaders of free countries. As with every tyrant before him, Putin thrives partly due to the cowardice of those who could deter him but choose not to….
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/05/opinions/russian-democracy-is-a-farce-kasparov/index.html

 see also
Simon Tisdall: Putin, a criminal and incompetent president, is an enemy of his own people
Book review: Midnight in the Century by Victor Serge – life in the Stalinist Soviet Union // Memoirs of a Revolutionary by Victor Serge – review
100 years of the outbreak of the Russian Revolution on International Women's Day
Anil Nauriya - Indian Struggles in 1917 : On the eve of the Russian Revolution
State memory: 1917 and Russian memory politics
The legacies of 1917 Orlando Figes & Daniel Gascon
Madhavan Palat: Utopia and Dystopia in Revolutionary Russia
The Bolshevik Heritage. By Dilip Simeon






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