Around the time of the Soviet Union’s disintegration, a friend predicted that communism would eventually make a comeback, “only the next time without the stupidities.”

My friend, a Hungarian, had experienced some of the 20th century’s most tragic events: the Nazis, the Holocaust (my friend, who is Jewish, barely escaped being shipped to the death camps), communism, the Hungarian revolution. It is thus understandable that he viewed with considerable skepticism the predictions of a harmonious, peaceful, and democratic post-Soviet era, especially as regards Russia.

His own native land has fared relatively well, although Hungarians themselves might not agree with that assessment right now. Currently, there are riots in Budapest after a tape was leaked, in which the prime minister spoke, in an address marked by rank vulgarities, of having lied and lied again about the state of the economy.

Hungary also has other problems: a gaping budget deficit, political polarization, corruption. But Hungary is now part of Europe, and its problems are similar in kind to those that bedevil other, more established democracies. Hungary is a normal country with normal problems, a great achievement given its political history. Hungary is currently marking the 50th anniversary of its anti-communist revolution. Although the revolution usually is described as a noble failure, one hopes that the commemoration will note that, in the end, the ideals that inspired the 1956 freedom fighters — as they were universally known at the time — were realized.

Russia, unfortunately, is another story entirely.

President Putin has drawn extensively, and shrewdly, from the old Soviet system to build what is increasingly looking like a new model of authoritarian rule. He has rejected the stupidities my friend referred to, the Marxian half of Marxism-Leninism. A statist economy, agricultural collectivization, dogmatic atheism, the demonization of the class enemy — these tattered concepts have no place in Mr. Putin’s Russia.

But Mr. Putin has updated and fine-tuned the Leninist half of the equation, especially those features that contribute to solidifying control over the instruments of government and the most strategically significant parts of the economy. He has not, of course, formally eliminated the democratic institutions that sprung up under his flawed predecessor, Boris Yeltsin. Political parties still exist in Russia, as do (a few) independent media outlets and non-governmental advocacy organizations. But Mr. Putin has moved, step by step, to marginalize or smother practically all sources of competing influence, to the point where today he rules with almost unchecked authority.

The deterioration of what was, under Mr. Yeltsin, a lively and politically diverse press is an especially dismaying development. Mr. Putin has eschewed direct censorship. Instead, newspapers and, especially, television stations with national impact have been taken over by the state or by allies of the leadership. Journalists who venture into controversial subjects have been silenced, most often by means of libel or defamation suits, though sometimes through violence.

There have also been a string of journalists’ killings — 13 on Mr. Putin’s watch, all unsolved. The most recent, and disturbing, was the assassination-style shooting of Anna Politkovskaya, the heroic reporter who had chosen to address a series of dangerous topics: local corruption, the mistreatment of ordinary Russian soldiers, and especially Russian atrocities in Chechnya.

Mr. Putin’s response to Politkovskaya’s death was as follows: He deplored the impact of the killing on Russia’s global image, he suggested that outside forces might have ordered the murder to blemish Russia’s reputation, and he noted, with chilling off-handedness, that her influence in Russia was “extremely insignificant.” No expression of condolence for Politkovskaya’s family, no affirmation of commitment to press freedom.

No one has made a serious accusation of government complicity in Politkovskaya’s death. But neither is anyone ruling it out as unthinkable. As is true of much else in today’s Russia, Politkovskaya’s murder has occurred in a murky zone where nothing is truly clear. While the authorities may eventually arrest the shooter, few believe that those who ordered the killing will be apprehended. And few believe the authorities will make a serious effort to track down the real criminals.

It is in its opaqueness, where facts — about a murder, a trial, an economic transaction, or atrocities in a war zone — are not known nor expected ever to be known, that Mr. Putin’s Russia most closely resembles the Soviet Union of Leonid Brezhnev. In the Soviet Union, of course, no one expected openness or anything approaching the truth. That Russia is in many respects an open and freewheeling place makes the lack of political transparency all the more insidious. And that the Russian leadership is moving to curb democracy for its people 50 years after it repressed Hungary’s bid for freedom is a sobering reminder of the challenges that liberty’s advocates face today, 15 years after the Cold War’s conclusion.

Mr. Puddington is director of research for Freedom House.