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Vladimir Putin Returns to Authoritarianism Authoritarianism is one of the three hallmarks of the Russian empire and is one of three characteristics of the government of the former Soviet Union. Party conflict in Russia is not between democratic alternatives; rather it is between democracy and authoritarianism. Russians are said to be predisposed to the ways of an authoritarian government. Russians tend to seek the salvations from their political and economic woes from a charismatic father figure. This paper will examine the progression Vladimir Putin had taken to return Russian to an authoritarian ruled state. Russian democracy is not consolidated institutionally or in the popular mind. Political power has been transferred solely by electoral and constitutional means since 1993, but the quality of Russian democracy is uncertain. Elections have been broadly free, in that there has been choice, but not fair, owing to faults such as extreme bias in media coverage. The forced constitutional settlement of 1993 laid the ‘building blocks for autocracy,’ and President Yeltsin used his powers to make arbitrary changes to the executive and to direct policy free from democratic constraints. Little was known about Boris Yeltsin