Political dissent and the social phenomenon of dissidents played a considerable role in Soviet Russia up to the times of Mikhail Gorbachev and his perestroika and glasnost policies. Together with "openness," these policies made unnecessary the very institution of dissidents as illegal and persecuted fighters for freedom of information and as accusers of the regime.
Also, under the first Russian president, Boris Yeltsin, during whose rule the communist hegemony was undermined and the old rigid economic system dismantled, the former dissidents found themselves jobless. Some joined the emerging political life that had begun to develop according to more or less democratic rules, while others moved away from political activities and went into business, or started writing books, or concentrated on their social life.
This period lasted almost two decades and ended abruptly when President Vladimir Putin entered his third term in May 2012. A new post-perestroika and post-Yeltsin era had begun, with the notorious vertical power structure firmly in place and the mass media gradually coming under full state control. A series of odious legal acts and government practices were introduced, distorting the fragile balance between what was given the funny name of "sovereign democracy" on the one side, and relative intellectual freedom and unbiased public opinion on the other side.
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