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So under Yeltsin, small-business owners were extorted into non-existence. And under Putin, non-profits and activist groups are thrown into prison.
The American press is too easy on Russian tycoons. The American government is too easy on Putin.
Putin and the oligarachs - same aims, same morals, different tactics and bedfellows.
But I fear the power a one-party state possesses far more than the Wild-West-like environment that followed the fall of Communism. Organized crime always fills the immediate power vacuum that accompanies the fall of a tyrant. They're the best adapted to chaos and exploiting the capitalist model. The difference is that the countries that have fought and struggled their way through these ugly transition periods - Bulgaria, Romania, Georgia, etc. - have weathered the worst and are now rapidly modernizing under a free-market system with upcoming entry into the EU for the first two mentioned. There are still plenty of problems, but for the most part these countries are stable, and I met not one person in my year-plus living in the region who desired a return to their pre-1989 situation.
Your mistake seems to be in assuming that Putin stands in contrast to the mob bosses of the 1990s; quite the contrary, they all play the same game, and the fact that Putin has stood alone at the top of the heap for so long marks him a dangerous man. After all, what's shaking down a few restaurants compared to a hostile takeover of your country's entire energy industry?
