And it's a "soft authoritarian" system. Meaning that elections not only exist, they actually do count for something. Sure, there's still a lot of electoral fraud by the ruling party, to get higher percentages. But even without it, Putin would still be the elected president, and his party would still have the majority in the parliament.
So, for starters, people can start voting against politicians who pass laws like this.
1) The government controls the media, so it is really hard for an honest reformer to get his message across to the public.
2) If a reform politician starts to really get somewhere, the government throws him in jail or has a bullet put through his head.
1. a theory or system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state.
2. (often initial capital letter) a system of social organization in which all economic and social activity is controlled by a totalitarian state dominated by a single and self-perpetuating political party.
In what ways is current Russia different than the second case? From what I understand Putin's party fits much of this description. I'm not being argumentative, I appreciate your insight.
I generally feel that taking a definition from a dictionary dominated with post war US propaganda terminology, might not be the best way to hold a constructive conversation regarding communism.
Just because I can't resist if you are curious, try to read about how Marxists proposed to implement communism, and what sort of pre-requisites they envisioned in order for a transition to be successful, versus how it was implemented in existing societies.
National-socialists had one, too. I'd say it's pretty upfront about what they really were about: http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/25points....
Any modern form of Communism must have some link to the theories of Marx and Engels. Putin's Russia has no such thing, it's a simple oligarchy led by a semi-formalized dictator for life. See also: Gaddafi, Pinochet, Batista, Mugabe etc etc etc.
On top of that, they've passed some new laws specifically to accelerate this process, that skip some usual review stages before demolition, and curtail the ability of affected citizens to contest either the decision itself, or the amount of their compensation, in courts.
Simply put, as implemented, it's a blatant money grab. Many of these buildings are in areas where real estate is very expensive now, and their residents in many cases couldn't afford it if they were buying new; they own apartments there because they were living in them back in USSR, and could privatize them afterwards. Now these residents get kicked out, "compensated" with much cheaper apartments further away from downtown (and their jobs), while new expensive real estate development can be done in that place, and sold for full market price.