The new czar? President Putin at his second inauguration, at the Kremlin in Moscow in May. Since becoming President in 1999, he has rolled back democratic reforms.

TEACHING OBJECTIVES

To help students understand why Russia's President Vladimir Putin says that in order to combat terrorism it's necessary to roll back democratic reforms that had swept the country after the collapse of Communism and the Soviet Union in 1991.

CRITICAL THINKING/DISCUSSION: Students should understand Putin's central thesis: Democracy leads to chaos and disrupts the unity (read: strong government authority) needed to overcome those who would seek to "disintegrate" the country.

Ask students to discuss Putin's reasoning. Why does he fear that free elections and a free press aid those who seek to destroy the country? Do a probing press and free elections threaten national unity?

Note that while it cannot be compared to Russia's "experience, many Americans are concerned that the Patriot Act, passed after 9/11, may threaten democracy by increasing government surveillance over citizens. Ask: Do terror threats require extraordinary steps to preserve safety and unity?

WRITING: Assign students to write a brief letter to an imaginary Russian teenager. The letter should focus on how Americans view free speech and free elections. How have Americans responded to the continuing danger of terrorist attacks?

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

* Why do American and Russian histories cause people in each culture to see democracy so differently?

* How would you answer Valentina Matviyenko's criticism of elections?

QUOTE OF NOTE: "Democracy is the worst form of government, except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. "--Winston Churchill. (1947)

WED WATCH: www.cia.gov. The CIA provides economic, political, and social data on Russia. Click on "The World Factbook" and go to "Russia." www.luptravel.com/worldmaps/russia.html provides many maps of Russia and its republics. Click on "Chechnya"; look to the left, in North Ossetia, to find Beslan, where rebels killed 331 at a school in September.

During most of Russia's turbulent thousand-year-plus history, the country has been ruled, not led. "There's a saying in Russia," says Oleg A. Delman, a member of the local parliament in Chuvashia, one of Russia's republics. "A country without its czar is like a village without an idiot."

So to some observers inside and outside Russia, President Vladimir Putin's announcement in September that he was overhauling the nation's political system and further curtailing democratic reforms as a response to the terrorist attack on a school in Beslan came as less than a shock.

Critics, however, said the changes, if enacted, would violate the Constitution and stifle what little political opposition remains in Russia, not much more than a decade after it began its bold experiment with democracy.

Putin announced the changes after militants from the Russian Republic of Chechnya and other terrorists took over the school in Beslan in September, leading to the deaths of 331 people, about half of them children. (Chechen militants, who are seeking independence for the largely Muslim republic, were also responsible for the downing of two Russian airliners in August, which killed 89 people.) Putin argued that Russia was unprepared to fight terrorism and that the country needed a more unified political system.

"Those who inspire, organize, and carry out terrorist acts are striving to disintegrate the country," Putin said in remarks that the state-run TV channels broadcast repeatedly. "They strive for the breakup of the state, for the ruin of Russia. I am sure that the unity of the country is the main prerequisite for victory over terror."

FIVE YEARS AS PRESIDENT

Since Russia adopted its new Constitution in 1993 following the collapse of the Soviet Union two years earlier, residents of the country's 89 regions have elected their Governors or, in some places, Presidents. They have also sent their own regional deputies to Moscow, Russia's capital.

Under Putin's proposals, the regional leaders would no longer be elected by popular vote but rather by local legislatures, and only after the President's nomination. Representatives to the lower house of the federal Parliament, or Duma, would be elected on national party slates, instead of in local district races across the country.

While these proposed changes are subject to parliamentary approval, it is almost a foregone conclusion because the United Russia party that is loyal to Putin controls two-thirds of Parliament's 450 seats.

The changes would amount to Putin's most significant rollback of democratic reforms in his almost five years in office. Since former President Boris N. Yeltsin elevated

Putin, a former head of the KGB, to the presidency on Dec. 31, 1999, Putin has steadily consolidated political power in the executive branch. Putin has taken away the power to appoint members of the upper house of Parliament from Russia's regions. He imposed a structure of seven federal districts over the country, each led by his appointees. He also tightened control over the press, leading some critics to complain that state-run Russian TV is starting to sound as bland and self-serving as it did during Soviet times.

A VAST, UNRULY NATION

In other ways, during Putin's time in power, Russia has seemed to make strides toward modernization. Its economy, measured by gross domestic product, has grown an impressive 6.5 percent a year between 1998 and 2003, due in part to higher oil production and prices. (Russia is now the second-largest oil exporter after Saudi Arabia.) The economic expansion has led to higher incomes and a surge in consumer spending, as Russians in Moscow and other urban areas line up to purchase foreign cars and cell phones.

But Russia's newfound economic muscle and its adoption of some Western consumer habits have not changed the fact that it is a vast, unruly nation sprawled uneasily between Eastern Europe and northern Asia. For most of its history, it has been ruled with an iron fist by princes and conquerors, czars, and Soviet dictators.

Today, the Russian Federation and its 21 republics (which are similar to America's states) are home to some 160 different ethnic groups that don't all embrace the idea of a greater Russia. It was these divisions that the fighters who seized the school in Beslan, in the Republic of North Ossetia, seemed eager to stoke: In the 13 years since the Soviet Union's collapse, Russia has failed to develop a sense of national identity. Indeed, in the southern and Asian areas where Russia's Muslim groups live, an ardent religious identification threatens to take its place.

DEMOCRACY'S CRITICS

Democracy, Putin suggested in remarks after the school siege, does not result in stability, but rather instability. It does not unify, but rather divides. That division, he suggested, can be controlled only with a strong hand from above.

"Given that Russia is not a melting pot, but rather a fragmented pot, he does not believe that democracy is the solution," says Clifford Kupchan of the Nixon Center, a foreign policy research group in Washington, D.C.

What was striking following Putin's announcement was how many Russian elected officials endorsed his plan. "Elections are often dirty, with money from the shadow economy and criminal groups trying to influence the results," Valentina I. Matviyenko, Governor of St. Petersburg, told a Russian news service. "An end will be put to various demonstrations of extremism, religious, political, and other," said the Governor of Saratov Oblast, in southeast Russia.

'STRANGLING FREEDOMS'?

Grigory A. Yavlinsky, one of the country's most prominent liberals, says the public's concept of democracy has been tainted by financial scandals, a decade of war in Chechnya, and terrorist attacks. "All this period of time was called democracy," Yavlinsky says. "The people looked at it and said, 'If that is democracy, then, thank you very much.' "

But there is also concern that Russia is taking a great leap backward. "We had such a long period of restrictions," says Vladislav V. Yefimov, a bookkeeper in Cheboksary, the capital of the republic of Chuvashia. "We were fed up with them. Now we are going to have them again."

Sergei S. Mitrokhin, a leader of the liberal Yabloko party, says Putin's plan represents "the elimination of the last links in a system of checks and balances."

The most prominent criticism, though, came from the two men who, arguably, did much to create the system Russia has today. In separate essays, Boris Yeltsin and Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the former Soviet leader who presided over the end of the Soviet Union, wrote that Russia should preserve the democratic gains of the past 13 years. "Strangling freedoms and curtailing democratic rights," Yeltsin wrote, "marks, among other things, the victory of terrorists."

QUIZ 1

The New Czar?

1. Russia's President Vladimir Putin says he is rolling back democratic reforms in response to

a interference in government affairs by the Russian Orthodox Church. b terrorist attacks. c a lack of support from provincial officials. d evidence that military leaders were planning to overthrow his government.

2. Putin's decision to roll, back democratic reforms has been

a soundly criticized by other government officials. b supported by many elected officials. c condemned by the United Nations. d challenged in Russia's courts.

3. Violence in Russia's republic of Chechnya

a is between ethnic groups within the republic. b is against Westerners Living in the republic. c is between different groups of Muslims. d was spawned by a desire for independence.

4. Russia's economy has seen impressive growth during Putin's presidency, in large part as a result of higher production and prices for Russia's

a grain. b oil. c factory machinery. d iron ore.

5. Ordinary Russians' concept of democracy

a has been tainted in part by financial scandals, war, terrorism, and instability. b has been formed by their admiration for the U.S. c incorporates a constitutional monarchy. d excludes the right to different religious beliefs.

6. Polls show many Russians have fond memories of

a U.S.-Soviet friendship. b their country's early history. c their country's role in space exploration. d strong dictators of years past.

Answer

1. (b) terrorist attacks. 2. (b) supported by many elected officials. 3. (d) was spawned by that republic's attempt to win independence from Russia. 4. (b) oil. 5. (a) has been tainted in part by financial scandals. 6. (d) strong dictators of years past.

Steven Lee Myers is Moscow bureau chief for The New York Times; additional reporting by Ian Zack.