Nearly twenty-five years after the fall of the Iron Curtain in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a few countries have emerged from the shadow of the former Eastern Bloc , like Estonia and Poland, and managed to transform into modern countries. democracies while others seem to have simply failed to do so. The Russian Federation, the successor state of the Russian SFSR, constitutes a particularly interesting case. Despite the vigorous reforms and turbulent transition that took place during Yeltsin-era Russia, many today believe that the old-fashioned communist system or "vertical power" was instead reincarnated under Putin's reign. From David Miliband calling Vladimir Putin a "ruthless dictator" to Masha Gessen's "The Dictator" in the New York Times, I wondered why they chose such vocabulary to describe the man. Is Putin really a dictator? The word "dictator", of Latin origin, is defined by the Oxford dictionary as "a leader having total power over a country". However, is he really someone who has “total power” over Mother Russia, as many in the West consider him to be? Born and raised in an ordinary working-class family in Leningrad, now known as St. Petersburg, young Putin certainly gave the impression of being a politician. himself being a troublemaker. His childhood dream of becoming the type of glamorous Soviet spy who appears in state propaganda films had led Putin to join the KGB, an organization that many believed had considerable influence over him, beyond his cynical attitude towards NGOs. In 1996, Putin took his first steps in the Kremlin as head of the Presidential Real Estate Management Directorate. Unexpected to many but hardly a surprise to few, in just four years he became president...... middle of paper ...... responsible for all the corruption, fraud and other crimes for which he been blamed. . Given Russia's influence in today's integrated world, where we see more collaborations and cooperation between countries, a better understanding of its leader not only gives us clues as to why some situations arise in Russia and beyond, but also increases the chances of having more constructive relations. dialogues. Not to mention he came first on Forbes' list of "The World's Most Powerful People" in 2013. Even if you don't want to stand for it, I guess it's still worth remembering what Sun Tzu has suggested in Art of War. : “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the outcome of a hundred battles. » Works Cited “If you know the enemy and you know yourself, you need not fear the outcome of a hundred battles. » http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/1771.Sun_Tzu