Russia is in the throes of a third revolution within 100 years. Putin and his former KGB oligarchs are being challenged in every sector, across income levels, geography and cultural boundaries. Russians have been made "free" by these rulers to be without health care, employment, democracy and the rule of law. It is remarkable how similar this policy is to that proposed by Paul Ryan. Not only would Ryan strip out the material benefits Americans enjoy like Medicaid and Social Security, but he would down size government so it would no longer be a competitor to Ryan's masters, the 1% and Wall Street. In the face of such absolute power Putin's gangs of militarized thugs have been looting the country at a rapid rate and off-shoring as much wealth as possible in property, commodities and weapons to client nations. Russia's one percent mirrors that of America. At the same time paranoid runs high and the apparent conflict between Putin and Medvedev reported in the Financial Times on August 10th 2012 by Catherine Belton is an indication that splits are taking place within the once monolithic troop.
The attack on the punk rock band, Pussy Riot, is the clearest demonstration of the pathology that grips Russia (http://www.care2.com/...). In 1990 the army stood by and generally left the conquest of power and the economy to the well organized KGB. One might imagine (given the various biographies like Gorbachev and Yeltsin's) that the result of Gorbachev's glasnos and perestroika culminated in the election of the Congress of People's Deputies and Congress of People's Deputies for the Russian Republic (RSFSR). According to new historic views these more democratically elected bodies than the old communist party organs produced legislative bodies that represented a rejection of the drifting and uncertain policies of Gorbachev and amorphous concepts of western democracy. This led the way for the KGB to use Yeltsin as a front to seize power much as the Bolsheviks did in 1917.
Theories of the success of the Bolsheviks have usually centered on the skill of Lenin and the party's program, new theories argue that the desire for peace and justice by the masses was seized upon the the Bolsheviks and, these new studies of "history from below" lead to the idea that the Russian people got the dictatorship they wanted (http://www.sras.org/...). This is hard to digest, given also that the Bolsheviks had plenty of help from the German High Command and were astute at propaganda as Voline (The Unknown Revolution, 1917-1921) argues in his most informative book written by an anarchist and major player in the events that led up the the revolution. With the help of the Koch brothers and Rupert Murdock's media empire America is going in this direction.
Murdock is a strange character but his behavior is just as strange and makes for the basis of a conspiracy theory given his background (http://www.dailykos.com/...). Joined with this view one can come to the conclusion that there is little difference between the Bolsheviks and today's GOP an outline analysis comes to the conclusion that they both were driven by the same goals (http://www.dailykos.com/...). One as to ask that if it walks like a duck and barks like a dog, what is the difference a name makes? Republican, Communist? Libertarian?
For Russia, democracy depends on the people's rejection of order by the corrupt who offer peace at any price. Russia needs to go back to its roots of revolt in 1905 and recreate the councils that produced the initial structure for revolt. Russians can also learn from the organization of revolt in the Middle East. Popular transformation of government is possible, but the replacement of democratic government by corporate control of economies is not the answer that is oligarchy and the Russians have that already, but America is on that road now.