Weimar on the Volga

Bush is just like Hitler? Yeah, yeah, didn't all you people moved to Canada on November 3? But another world leader may bear the comparison, and that's not a good thing for us.

In 1997, I published an academic article -- co-written with the Russian economic expert Brigitte Granville -- entitled Weimar Germany and Contemporary Russia. I can still remember being teased by one of my brightest undergraduates -- himself a German -- that this was excessively pessimistic, at a time when Russia's economic recovery appeared to be gathering momentum. I had to remind him just how long the Weimar Republic took to dissolve into Hitler's dictatorship.

Born in 1919 in the wake of Germany's humiliating defeat in the First World War, the Weimar Republic suffered hyperinflation, an illusory boom, a slump and then, starting in 1930, a slide into authoritarian rule, culminating in 1933 with Hitler's appointment as chancellor. Total life: slightly less than 14 years.

Born in 1991 in the wake of the Soviet Union's humiliating defeat in the Cold War, today's Russian Federation has suffered a slump, hyperinflation and is currently enjoying a boom on the back of high oil prices. Its slide into authoritarian rule has been gradual since Putin came to power in 1999. Is it going to culminate -- 14 years on -- in a full-scale dictatorship in 2005? That is beginning to look more and more likely.

[That misuse of "entitled" for "titled" is one of my pet peeves, by the way. But it's a quote.]