Apurely regional subdivision does not, in my view, bring out any especially significant post-Soviet characteristics. It would be better instead to class these states according to their type of political development, which produces the following three groupings. First, countries in which power has several times been transferred to the opposition through elections, and which we can consider as being squarely on the path of democratic development. These are: Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, to which we might add Moldova—though this is a more complicated case, developing in its own distinctive fashion.

Second, countries in which power has never been transferred to the opposition, or indeed to anyone not nominated by the authorities themselves. There are four of these: Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, ruled today by Nursultan Nazarbaev and Islam Karimov, both former First Secretaries of the cp Central Committee of their respective republics; Turkmenistan, ruled by Saparmurat Niyazov, also a member of the Soviet nomenklatura, until his death in 2006, when the presidency was handed to one of his comrades-in-arms; and Russia, where power has twice been transferred—but to men designated by their predecessors. These are what I have termed ‘imitation democracies’, characterized by a huge disparity between formal constitutional principles and the reality of authoritarian rule.

Thirdly, in between these two paths of development—democratic and authoritarian—lies a large group of countries which have, as it were, switched between the two. There are seven of these: Ukraine, Belarus, the three Transcaucasian countries—Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan—and in Central Asia, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. They have followed highly varied trajectories. Ukraine experienced one democratic rotation of power, in 1994, from its first post-Soviet president Leonid Kravchuk to the second, Leonid Kuchma; the latter then made an unsuccessful attempt to establish an ‘imitation democratic’ regime, leading in turn to the ‘Orange Revolution’ of 2004. At present, a democratic system is stabilizing in Ukraine, gradually and with great difficulty. Belarus, on the other hand, currently has a harsh authoritarian regime. But it has not been on this path from the beginning: President Lukashenko was democratically elected in 1994 as a representative of the opposition.

In Transcaucasia, there was an initial period of rule by former dissidents, followed by the establishment of imitation democratic regimes of varying severity. In Georgia, the former dissident and philologist Zviad Gamsakhurdia came to power at the close of the Soviet era, but was overthrown at the end of 1992; after a short civil war, the former Georgian cp First Secretary Eduard Shevardnadze returned to the country and established an imitation democracy. This was eventually overthrown by the ‘Rose Revolution’ of 2004—but it seems that the man elevated to the presidency by it, Mikheil Saakashvili, is himself now attempting to establish a similar regime.

The first post-Soviet president of Armenia—the medievalist Levon Ter-Petrosian—was removed by a bloodless military coup in 1998; thereafter, a relatively weak and mild imitation democratic regime was established. In Azerbaijan, as in Georgia, the first democratically elected president—the ex-dissident Abulfaz Elchibey—was toppled by a coup in 1993; a civil war ensued, followed by the ascent to power of Heydar Aliev who, as former head of the Azerbaijan kgb and then First Secretary of the republican cp Central Committee, is an obvious analogue to Shevardnadze. But unlike his Georgian counterpart, Aliev was able to establish a durable authoritarian regime and even hand over power to his son Ilham in 2003—the first quasi-dynastic transfer of power in the post-Soviet space.

Turning to Central Asia, Tajikistan was racked by a long and bloody civil war, lasting from 1992 to 1997. Emomali Rakhmonov, president since 1994, has now established an imitation democratic regime there, but it is softer and less consolidated than those of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. In Kyrgyzstan, Askar Akaev took office in 1990, and also set up a regime of this kind; but he was toppled in 2005 by another ‘colour revolution’—‘Tulip’ in this case—issuing in a transitional period of democratic anarchy. At present, a new imitation democratic regime, harsher than that of Akaev, is being consolidated there under Kurmanbek Bakiev, Akaev’s prime minister from 2000–02.

This is a very schematic picture of post-Soviet political developments. The first two groups are identifiable enough. The third set of countries, wavering between the two paths, will eventually opt for one or the other. Ukraine, it seems to me, is already solidly on the path of democratic development; Belarus, having initially moved along the same track, is now firmly in the authoritarian camp. Relatively stable authoritarian regimes have been established in Tajikistan, Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan. Georgia and Armenia are still standing at the crossroads.