Fourteen years after the fall of the Soviet Union, democracy is showing fresh signs of life in yet another former Soviet republic: Kyrgyzstan. Last week, in a dramatic display of "people power," popular protests against disputed elections toppled President Askar Akayev, who had ruled the Central Asian nation for 15 years. Similar protests had forced a government change in Georgia in November 2003 and in Ukraine in December 2004.

It was the "rose revolution" that toppled an authoritarian regime in Georgia and the "orange revolution" that did the same in Ukraine. In Kyrgyzstan, there is, as yet, no name for what happened there last week, but it still seems fair to call it a revolution. In all three cases, the driving force for change was popular anger at what was seen widely as flawed elections.

The upheavals in the three former Soviet republics have another thing in common: political corruption in a regime of near-absolute power. In that kind of climate, a vicious circle forms and events tend to take a common pattern: Rulers maintain an iron grip to suppress dissent. Their families and cronies dominate politics and business, and amass fortunes, while millions of people languish in poverty. To protect their status, dictators and their ilk build a powerful secret police to crack down on opposition parties and media organizations. With democratic forces in limbo, their societies continue to stagnate politically and economically. Popular discontent accumulates over the years, eventually reaching a boiling point.