The Christmas weekend was, I’m sure you noticed, rich with political incident. And yet,
from continued turbulence in the Middle East to continued turbulence in Chris Huhne’s career, few things stood out as much as the protests
against Vladimir Putin in Russia. They were, by most reasonable estimates, the largest in that country since the fall of the Soviet Union. And they add to the wave of disgruntlement that has been
swelling since even before this month’s disputed parliamentary elections.
The wave, of course, hasn’t broken yet. But few seem sure about how far it will travel and how much change it will wreak. The best article I’ve read on the matter, by David Remnick in the Christmas edition of the New Yorker, covers the similarities with the Arab Spring — the democracy-lovin’, web-dextrous protestors, etc — but also the stark differences.
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