Russia is not exactly the criminal state imagined by the US officials quoted in last week’s WikiLeaks cable dump – it is a different kind of criminal state. The national government is not chiefly responsible for directing political violence. Instead, most is the work of local bosses and other criminals, tolerated by those at the top.
Democracy in itself is not the answer to Russia’s problems. In many countries, forms of democracy co-exist with domination by corrupt and brutal oligarchies. One example is the Philippines, where the death rate of journalists is even higher.
But while democracy is not essential to social and economic progress, the rule of law is. The present Russian set-up, in which the rule of law is widely flouted by the state itself, makes the government incapable of taking action against corruption and the violence this corruption breeds – because any effective anti-corruption campaign would risk bringing the fragile existing order down in ruins.