Oh gosh, I'm not sure I'm prepared to talk about Putin tonight. Too much to say
I've always been deeply critical of Putin, not without acknowledging his stabilizing influence - but the fact is that I've never thought of Putin as the real power in Russia. Russia has been basically ruled by consensus between several very different factions (that form United Russia) that always had some parallel interests and disagreed on others. They met in the middle and sorted things out behind closed doors. As such, Russia coasted along on a wave of stability for the previous 10 years, which benefitted the tiny elite and kept the rest of the country in poverty. Russia under Putin returned to its usual two-class order (small, incredibly wealthy elite; overwhelming majority of impoverished masses, and not much in between) that was so well-entrenched in the USSR.
I think something very, very disturbing took place in Russia approximately 12-13 months ago, though. I don't even know what, and I'm not sure anyone outside Russia's power circles does - but the nature of the Putin regime has changed drastically. Something broke down in the consensus between the different factions in United Russia, and suddenly virtually all the power is in the hands of very conservative, authoritarian types - chiefly the army and intelligence community. It has been largely ignored in the Western press, and people have only started paying attention when the Pussy Riot story broke (although it isn't even the tip of the iceberg...) The tone of Putin's regime right now worries me a lot. The people who run Russia now have very little regard for civic society as such, and I hate to say it, but the first thought that comes to mind about many recent events in Russia is "it's sure starting to resemble Iran..." So that's my thought on the Putin regime.
As for Gorbi, like I said, I've liked him as a person. The Soviet regime had to fall in any case, and Gorbachev knew that better than almost anyone. He knew he got a tough lot, and he knew he couldn't just sit by and wait idly. I just feel that for all his good intentions, he simply let history happen as the sentiment of the time willed, both when it should have (which were he brilliant moments in the liberation of Eastern Europe) and his darker moments (his sidelining politically, the putsch, and the arbitrary and thoughtless process by which the USSR was disassembled in Belavezha).