Russian democracy in the post-totalitarian era is intimately bound up with the fate of its representative institutions. In Russia's Road to Democracy, Victor Sergeyev and Nikolai Biryukov assess why the Congress of People's Deputies, and the other newly elected institutions founded under perestroika, not only failed to prevent, but also seemed to speed up and provoke, the disintegration of the Soviet Union. By studying the early history of the Congress, the book seeks insights on the prospects for democracy in Russia. Following an inquiry into the roots of Soviet political culture and the implications for future representative institutions, the book then examines the genesis of the Congress of People's Deputies and attempts a hermeneutical reconstruction of the deputies' models of social reality, as expressed in the texts of their parliamentary debates. The authors argue that the adoption of the concept of sobornost - a belief in society's organic unity - as the basic model for this institution proved utterly inadequate to the challenges the country faced. Including substantial new source material which is being made available in English for the first time, Russia's Road to Democracy presents an in-depth analysis with conclusions that contradict the hitherto prevailing theoretical assumptions.

Russia has embarked on a slow but steady path of foreign policy alignment with the West. President Vladimir Putin¡¯s market-oriented economic policies and structural reforms have added momentum. But in the long run, the decisive factor in Russia¡¯s relationship with the West will be the nature of the political order it builds on the ruins of communism. There is a broad consensus among Western observers that Russia¡¯s effort to build Western-style democratic institutions in the eleven years since the Soviet collapse has stalled somewhere between democracy as understood in the West and the highly authoritarian order Russia inherited from the USSR. Some would say that Russia is doomed by its history and political culture to a lengthy period of semi-authoritarianism. In Russia¡¯s Road to Deeper Democracy, Tom Bjorkman presents evidence that this assessment is too pessimistic and underestimates the forces for political change that lie beneath the surface of what seems to be an era of political somnolence. Bjorkman argues that it is not the weight of history or the antidemocratic attitudes of the Russian population that restrain Russia from making progress toward stronger democratic institutions but specific leadership policies and elements of Russia¡¯s political elite who have a self-interest in maintaining the status quo. Putin and other senior leaders¡¯ support for proposals for democratic change now under discussion in Russia can create the kind of competitive political marketplace that the country needs to avoid political stagnation and begin to build the strong and prosperous state that all Russians want. America exerts a large influence on Russia¡¯s debate about its political future: by demonstrating that Russia¡¯s progress toward a stronger democratic order matters to the United States and by treating Russia as a part of the West, the United States can buttress internal forces pushing for a deeper Russian democracy.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of On Tyranny comes a stunning new chronicle of the rise of authoritarianism from Russia to Europe and America. “A brilliant analysis of our time.”—Karl Ove Knausgaard, The New Yorker With the end of the Cold War, the victory of liberal democracy seemed final. Observers declared the end of history, confident in a peaceful, globalized future. This faith was misplaced. Authoritarianism returned to Russia, as Vladimir Putin found fascist ideas that could be used to justify rule by the wealthy. In the 2010s, it has spread from east to west, aided by Russian warfare in Ukraine and cyberwar in Europe and the United States. Russia found allies among nationalists, oligarchs, and radicals everywhere, and its drive to dissolve Western institutions, states, and values found resonance within the West itself. The rise of populism, the British vote against the EU, and the election of Donald Trump were all Russian goals, but their achievement reveals the vulnerability of Western societies. In this forceful and unsparing work of contemporary history, based on vast research as well as personal reporting, Snyder goes beyond the headlines to expose the true nature of the threat to democracy and law. To understand the challenge is to see, and perhaps renew, the fundamental political virtues offered by tradition and demanded by the future. By revealing the stark choices before us--between equality or oligarchy, individuality or totality, truth and falsehood--Snyder restores our understanding of the basis of our way of life, offering a way forward in a time of terrible uncertainty.

WARNING: IMMEDIATE GLOBAL THREAT TO ALL DEMOCRATIC NATIONS BY THE CHINA-RUSSIA AXIS America’s future has never seemed more uncertain. Our politics are dysfunctional; our cultural cohesion is a thing of the past; our institutions have lost legitimacy; and our identity as Americans seems increasingly subordinate to tribal or ideological identities. Overhanging all these issues is a loss of confidence in democracy itself, both in America and around the world, and the concomitant rise of authoritarianism as a viable model of governance in the eyes of millions. At the center of this story are two nations—Russia and China—that together stand as a profound challenge to the American and Western future, and to the future of democracy and human rights around the globe. As America unravels, China and Russia have taken every opportunity to expand their opportunities and consolidate their gains. If the United States is to prevail in this struggle, our efforts must begin with a better understanding of our determined adversaries in Beijing and Moscow—and of how their successes have emboldened the cause of authoritarianism around the world, to the detriment of free societies and free people.

For hundreds of years, dictators have ruled Russia. Do they still? In the late 1980s, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev launched a series of political reforms that eventually allowed for competitive elections, the emergence of an independent press, the formation of political parties, and the sprouting of civil society. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, these proto-democratic institutions endured in an independent Russia. But did the processes unleashed by Gorbachev and continued under Russian President Boris Yeltsin lead eventually to liberal democracy in Russia? If not, what kind of political regime did take hold in post-Soviet Russia? And how has Vladimir Putin's rise to power influenced the course of democratic consolidation or the lack thereof? Between Dictatorship and Democracy seeks to give a comprehensive answer to these fundamental questions about the nature of Russian politics.