Russia: The Election of '96

The historic events of the 1996 presidential election appear to point to true progress in making a Russian democracy. Especially when compared with other periods of Russia's history--be it the confrontational and ultimately bloody politics of the first years of the new Russian state, the seventy years of totalitarian rule under the Communists, or the hundreds of years of autocratic government under the tsars--the following milestones are truly spectacular.