Answering questions without a shade of fear or reticence and with remarkable thoughtfulness and self-awareness, the men and women we interviewed in Russia revealed deeply personal, passionate commitment to dignity in liberty and citizenship.

The Internet is already a major factor in Russian politics--and its influence is growing almost daily.

Circumstances in Russia point to the gradual erosion of legitimacy and political institutions--or a sudden collapse of the regime, like the recent Egyptian antiauthoritarian revolt.

American Enterprise Institute (AEI) Russia expert, Leon Aron, recently traveled through Russia interviewing leaders of grass-roots movements. In a just released Russian Outlook, Aron describes the transformation underway in Russia.

Like all great modern revolutions, Russia's anti-Communist upheaval was precipitated by merciless moral self-scrutiny and a search for a more dignified, more honorable, and more moral life. There followed a wholesale rejection of the key norms and values of the ancien régime. The emerging new ideals became increasingly incompatible with...

Russia's demographic decline will undermine the Kremlin's plans for economic and military modernization--and could make Moscow more dangerous in the international arena.

China's new leadership is threatening to stay content with slower economic growth, and the country's manufacturing, housing, and export sectors are experiencing problems. Nonetheless, China has an opportunity to influence economic growth in 2012 through stimulus measures to its own economy.

Grass-roots leaders are convinced that lasting Russian liberalization will come not from violent revolution or a great rupture imposed from above but from a mature civil society with the courage to control the executive. Thus, their work is not geared toward political change, but inner moral transformation, self-organization, and self-reliance.