Winter is Coming Read Online Free PDF Page A

as the saying goes, and so we must look at the shift in values and priorities that has made appeasement and defeatist realpolitik the currency of choice in foreign policy today. Removing the moral component from foreign affairs has been a catastrophe from which it will take a very long time to recover. The last section of this book is dedicated to a comprehensive plan to implement that recovery, beginning with questions every candidate for leadership in the world’s democracies should have to answer.
    Throughout the book I will share my personal observations and experiences as an activist in Russia and in my work today as the chairman of the New York-based Human Rights Foundation. Of course my political battles actually started back in the 1980s, with my rebellion against the Soviet sports authorities as a chess champion and my interviews to Western publications about the iniquities of the Communist system that often got me into hot water. But the most important story in this book is not my own. It is the story of how Vladimir Putin, with the indifference, and in some cases the support, of the free world that had brought down the Soviet Union, put an end to the democratic experiment in Russia.

PROLOGUE
    The rise and fall of Russian democracy would make for a painfully short book. It took just eight years for Russia to go from jubilant crowds celebrating the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992 to the ascendance of former KGB agent Vladimir Putin to the presidency. Then it took Putin another eight years to corrupt or dismantle nearly every democratic element in the country— balance in the branches of government, fair elections, independent judiciary, a free media, and a civil society that could work with the government instead of living in fear of it. Uncooperative oligarchs were jailed or exiled and the press quickly learned what could and could not be said. Putin also consolidated the Russian economy, clamping down on free market reforms and emphasizing the creation of “national champions” in the energy and banking sectors.
    A potential turning point came in 2008, when Putin’s constitutional limit of two four-year terms was ending. Few expected him to retire gracefully, or at all, but exactly how he would keep control while keeping up appearances was a hot topic of debate. Putin had channeled power not just to his party or to his office, but to himself personally. His leaving would have been like ripping the spine out of the KGB mafia state he and his allies had spent eight years building. He could amend the Russian constitution to run again, but at the time Putin was still sensitive about keeping up democratic appearances. For one, it would have been awkward for his fellow G8 leaders to welcome him after any primitive power grab, and staying in the good graces of the leaders of the United States, Japan, and Western Europe was very useful to
    Putin at home. How could he be called anti-democratic, let alone a despot, if he was embraced so heartily by the likes of George W. Bush, Silvio Berlusconi, and Nicolas Sarkozy?
    Putin’s dilemma gave those of us in the Russian opposition movement a brief glimmer of hope that the 2008 election could turn into an opportunity to change the course of the country. We knew the election itself would be rigged from start to finish, but we hoped exposing this corruption could lead to more people joining our cause. Russians were aware they were losing their freedoms under Putin, and they could still be sensitive about having their noses rubbed in it, as the massive 2011 protests later showed.
    Putin’s decision was a tactical masterstroke. Instead of keeping the presidency himself, he endorsed his first deputy prime minister, the young Dmitry Medvedev, who was generally seen as far more liberal and pro-Western than his boss. The election was as predictable and rigged as could be expected, with Medvedev scoring a small fraction less than Putin had in 2004. (The joke at the time was