@Ninian Russian and western ideas of democracy are historically different. Marx and Lenin had a very different version where you vote once and then everyone has to obey (democratic centralism) which was originally necessary to organize the communist revolution between a bunch of separate in-fighting communist cells and factions. This means the elected leaders are judged absolutely right because you voted for them, and disagreement after the vote is sabotage. You can only say the voted action was wrong only after it is completed - which is why the Soviet Union had five year plans to limit the scope of any ruling. This mechanism allows keeping a dictatorship by forcing people to vote certain ways, and by faking votes, because the only point where the peoples' opinion matters at all is at the voting booth, at the end of a gun.
The west is a more continuous process with criticism and dissidence allowed at every point. Governments can be thrown over by a vote of non-confidence. Russia is still missing this; you do not understand the point of democracy.
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@Ninian Russian and western ideas of democracy are historically different. Marx and Lenin had a very different version where you vote once and then everyone has to obey (democratic centralism) which was originally necessary to organize the communist revolution between a bunch of separate in-fighting communist cells and factions. This means the elected leaders are judged absolutely right because you voted for them, and disagreement after the vote is sabotage. You can only say the voted action was wrong only after it is completed - which is why the Soviet Union had five year plans to limit the scope of any ruling. This mechanism allows keeping a dictatorship by forcing people to vote certain ways, and by faking votes, because the only point where the peoples' opinion matters at all is at the voting booth, at the end of a gun.
The west is a more continuous process with criticism and dissidence allowed at every point. Governments can be thrown over by a vote of non-confidence. Russia is still missing this; you do not understand the point of democracy.