Putin Is Trying to Reconstruct the Russian Empire
July 21, 2014
Whatever it takes.
Does the Kremlin view Kiev’s judiciousness and restraint as acquiescence to Putin’s aggression?
Putin Channels 'The Godfather'
March 21, 2014
This is the true end of history—the history of dreams about a world ruled by democratic values and the market economy.
"The World Needs Russia. Russia Does Not Need Putin."
March 11, 2014
Russia is not doomed to despotism at home and aggression abroad. It is no sphinx—it is a country full of conflicts and debates.
Polish cold-war dissident Adam Michnik says the Ukraine occupation might be the beginning of Putin's end.
Moving Letters from a Jailed Russian Oligarch
July 25, 2013
Adam Michnik's moving salute to Mikhail Khodorkovsky's evolution—from "billionaire to political prisoner to the conscience of [his] country"—and to his project for a new Russia.
After the Revolution
April 18, 1993
Politics is the art of achieving political goals — of achieving what is possible in a given situation, that is, in a situation that has its conditions and its limits. In this respect, the ethical point of view, the consideration of what is good and what is bad, what is fair and what is unfair, what is honest and what is dishonest, is external to politics. An ethical action, like an unethical action, is usually analyzed by politicians purely in pragmatic terms. Does it lead toward the goal or does it lead away from it? Montaigne observed, in his famous polemic against Machiavelli, that if a pol