When the Soviet Union collapsed and global communism retreated, many hoped that the days of authoritarian leaders building cults of personality were over. We had reached the “end of history” and liberal democracy had won. Regular, peaceful transitions of power among democratically elected officials would be the norm and no one would dare claim to be infallible, let alone divine.
In the USSR, communism could be the only “religion.” And if communism was godless, its opponents concluded, the antidote must be Christianity. Russia’s first post-Soviet president, Boris Yeltsin, communicated his democratic spirit partly by declaring himself a Christian. With that, God, not Vladimir Lenin, became the measure of post-Soviet leaders’ nondictatorial aspirations.
But Russia’s current president, Vladimir Putin, has turned this approach on its head, taking post-Soviet piousness to an evangelical level to serve his dictatorial aims. During a 2002 visit to the United States, Putin’s zealous talk about crosses and miracles convinced U.S. President George W. Bush — a born-again Christian — that the former lieutenant colonel of the KGB, once Russia's secret police and intelligence agency, had “heart and soul.”