Vladimir Putin's deadly struggle to stay in power shows why democracy is so important – Scotsman comment

The means to peacefully transfer power from one person to another is a vital source of national stability

When the Ancient Greeks invented democracy, one of the ways that Cleisthenes, its champion, sold this revolutionary change to the nobility was by pointing out that it would dramatically reduce the consequences of political defeat. Instead of death or exile for backing the wrong tyrant, life would go on much as before after losing a vote.

For all Athenian democracy’s faults, this wisdom is still relevant some 2,500 years later, as can be seen from events in Russia. After 23 years of corrupting the electoral process, abusing his power and murdering his opponents, Vladimir Putin cannot simply step down, as it could quickly result in his assassination or prosecution for war crimes. That means he must become increasingly authoritarian.

There is also no way to challenge or scrutinise his decisions as dissent cannot be tolerated. When Yevgeny Prigozhin, the vicious leader of the Wagner group’s mercenary army, fell out with the Kremlin, he was almost forced into an armed revolt. Following the abrupt end of his mutiny – reportedly after Russian security services threatened the families of Wagner’s leaders – there is widespread speculation that he will find himself the next dissenting figure to be shot dead, poisoned with polonium or mysteriously fall from a high balcony.

Some in Russia and elsewhere praise dictators for bringing stability. However, while three Prime Ministers in two months did make Britain a laughing stock, the ability to remove people from power peacefully is actually one of the most important ways to achieve this.

In 1947, possibly still smarting from his 1945 general election defeat, Winston Churchill told the Commons that “it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time”, but he immediately added: “There is the broad feeling in our country that the people should rule, continuously rule, and that public opinion, expressed by all constitutional means, should shape, guide, and control the actions of ministers who are their servants and not their masters.”

The deadly machinations of Russia’s ruling gangster class are an object lesson in the folly of tyranny.