The question has been asked why the present opposition seems to lack the moral authority of the anti-Soviet dissidents. In part, this must surely be because of the change from totalitarianism to ‘guided democracy,’ where there is – despite the murder of journalists – some semblance of a marketplace of political and economic ideas. Where there is such a marketplace, it is more difficult to achieve moral grandeur [in dissidence], though it is much easier to say something; strange compromises and alliances are made; it is not simply a matter of courageously facing down patent monolithic evil. You can oppose Marxism root and branch, from its epistemology to its practical economic corollaries; the corruption of the Putin regime seems more the consequence of the weakness of human nature than of an ideology, and few people are quite sure what they would do if subject to the temptation of a quick fortune.