The Political Past, Present, and Future of Russia

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The Political Past, Present, and Future of Russia Russia never associated as a democracy in anyone's mind. It had always

been an authoritarian regime of different species and developed a

mentality, which creates an almost unsurpassable obstacle for

democratic development. Unlike Britain, which took gradual and

methodical steps towards democracy, Russia always had abrupt and

extreme changes that always created chaos and significantly slowed

down the development of the democratic system. By the end of the 20th

century Russia finally embarked on a pragmatic course towards

democracy, however it certainly prognosis a long establishment.

Russia's history and culture traces back for over a thousand years,

which left deep marks in the mentality of Russian people and certainly

had a great impact in Russia's political and cultural development.

Russia was always somewhat different from most of the European

countries; it was isolated by different political principals and

convictions.

From the early historical development Russia took a different route

from the rest of Europe. It adopted the orthodox religion from the

Byzantine Empire and became the center of orthodoxy, the main religion

of present Russian Federation, while most European states had Roman

Catholicism. Besides religion Russia also acquired the Cyrillic

alphabet that is still used today, instead of Latin alphabet that was

used throughout Western Europe. However, the biggest difference

between Rus...

... middle of paper ...

...o gear political development to a

dictatorship.

It is rather difficult to tell precisely where Putin's polity and

actions will take Russia in the future. Will he develop a democracy or

turn back to autocracy? Might sound a little poetic, but realistically

speaking Russia is still far to match the examples of western

democracies. The long established historical influence and mentality

must be cleared away through generations and generations, before the

people would be ready to accept democracy. For now Russia should

attempt to make smart choices, which would push it towards the

democratic dream. Who knows, maybe a several decades years later our

great grandchildren would be writing papers and doing studies on the

great Russian phenomenon: The great transition from complete autocracy

to a most successful democracy.

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