Dark Age Of Soviet Union Has Returned With A Vengeance

GRIPPED by his megalomaniacal delusions, Vladimir Putin dreamt of reviving the Russian empire of the Tsars with the conquest of Ukraine. But as the invasion stalls and the free world unites in outrage against him, what he has really achieved is the revival of the despotic Soviet system.

- Leo McKinstry

The Communist regime of the last century was one of the darkest tyrannies ever known, where political oppression was matched by economic sclerosis. The labour camp and the queue for bread were twin symbols of its nightmarish misrule.

Its final demise came in the early 1990s, broken by the failed war in Afghanistan, a popular revolt driven by a collapse in living standards, and the reluctance of its own leaders, headed by the reformist Mikhail Gorbachev, to maintain the rotten edifice any longer.

Since then, despite many setbacks, Russia has been on a path towards greater freedom and prosperity. Yet suddenly, after the onslaught against Ukraine, all the gains of the last three decades have been obliterated. The dark age of the Soviet Union has returned with a vengeance. Amid global isolation, economic meltdown and rising authoritarianism, the Iron Curtain is firmly back in place.