ARTICLE: "A Chess Champion Unites Disparate Critics of Putin: Kasparov Tries to Turn Kremlin's Crackdowns To Political Advantage," by Alan Cullison, Wall Street Journal, 20 June 2007, p. A1.

The move and countermove:

The Kremlin channels dissent into parties that limit their criticism to lower-level officials, and hounds any party that tries to run without Kremlin approval. There remains a reservoir of angry but muffled voices. Mr. Kasparov, as a celebrity who refused to shut up, has managed to unify them to some degree.

That, to me, sounds like a Nobel Peace Prize in the making, but get behind Sistani, I say, because he's saving lives big-time in Iraq. No, I don't expect Kasparov to dislodge Putin's crowned successor, but the sheer reality that he's been able to unite the opposition is a modest step forward. When this evolution moves into something more recognizable as rough pluralism, Russia's establishment and its opposition will move beyond the dregs/stars of the Soviet system, or the last generation of KGB versus the last generation of celebrities/poseurs. But we're a good generation from that generation appearing, or the people who've worked within the successor system for their entire careers and want to improve it. Stability and growth set that sort of ambition in motion. Putin, in retrenching from the wild days of Gorby's political unraveling of the Soviet Union and Yeltsin's economic unraveling of the centrally-planned economy, has provided that and only that, but it's enough for now. Yes, the country is full of old farts who'll tell you it's all been a disaster, but the harsh truth is those were old dogs whose only new trick learned has been to drink themselves into early graves rather than change. Don't mourn them or the system. It was a journey well worth enabling.