To be sure, these are methods of repression that many oppositionists in Russia are well acquainted with. While the majority of such cases go largely unreported, a few prominent individuals do stand out as longtime activists who have succeded in attracting international attention to their causes. Among these are former Soviet dissident and longtime rights activist Lyudmila Alexeyeva and United Civil Front leader Garry Kasparov, whom Foreign Policy features on the opening page of its article:

Lyudmila M. Alexeyeva: A tiny, frail woman of 82 years, Alexeyeva has protested Russian repression for more than 40 years — dating back to Leonid Brezhnev’s premiership of the former Soviet Union. She was first reported to Soviet authorities at age 19 for reading banned poetry. Today, she can be found leading protests on street corners and in prominent plazas, most recently on New Year’s Eve, when she was arrested for leading an unauthorized protest. In January, she told the New York Times that Soviet repression was easier to fight than it is in Vladimir Putin’s era: “There were rules then. They were idiotic rules, but there were rules, and if you knew them you could defend yourself.” She has been attacked by pro-Kremlin supporters in recent months, prompting members of the European Parliament to express their concern and award her the body’s 2009 Sakharov human rights prize, named for famed Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov.

Garry Kasparov: Arguably the world’s greatest chess player, Kasparov’s political career has not been nearly as successful. Founder of the United Civil Front and a leader of the loose opposition coalition the “Other Russia,” Kasparov planned to challenge then-President Vladimir Putin’s handpicked successor, Dmitry Medvedev, in the 2008 Russian presidential election. But he was forced to withdraw in the face of a campaign of harassment that he says was directed by the Kremlin. Kasparov, like many other Putin-era Russian dissidents, has proved much more popular in the West than in Russia. And Putin, now a very powerful prime minister, has proved to be an even tougher opponent than Deep Blue.

The article can be read in full on Foreign Policy’s website by clicking here.

From Foreign Policy:

Russia’s ambitions were backed by rising oil prices and swelling coffers. Money kept flowing in no matter what the Kremlin said or did. Local businesses and international corporations were scared into total obedience. Dmitry Medvedev, Putin’s protégé and successor as president, even began lecturing the world on how to reorganize the global financial system. He dreamed Russia would become a new financial capital, and the ruble a new reserve currency. At last, Russia was feared by the West, which in Putin’s book is equivalent to respect.
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Then the economic crisis engulfed Russia, too.
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The current economic crisis has hit Russia hard, exposing its institutional weaknesses and the fragility of its success. The drop in the price of oil and the seizing up of capital markets are choking Russia’s economy, which has relied on petrodollars and cheap credit. Economies have been hit all over the world, but nowhere, it seems, has the reversal been as dramatic as in Russia.

Confidence in the rule of a wealthy, heavy-handed Russian state has been shaken, and it is now a real possibility that the global economic crisis, as it persists and even intensifies, could cause Putin’s social contract to unravel. What is not clear, however, is what would take its place-and whether it would be any improvement. The nationalist passions and paranoia that Putin has stirred up have poisoned Russian society in lasting ways. Now, 2009 could be a new “Great Break” for Russia, but the result might just be a country in upheaval-broken.