From a great article in WSJ today: As liberty recedes in Russia, Mr. Gorbachev’s stance raises a question: Is the former Soviet president a savvy politician who sees democratic instincts in Mr. Putin that his critics have missed? Or has he been seduced by the Kremlin’s attentions into becoming an apologist for the former KGB agent who is undoing the revolution Mr. Gorbachev began? “It’s very much to the benefit of the Kremlin to use Gorbachev, and he allows himself to be used this way,” says Lyudmilla Telen, a journalist and Gorbachev friend who edits a small Internet news site. “He will keep balancing as long as he can.” The former president says he isn’t being manipulated. “I think Putin is a democrat,” he says in an interview. Some “authoritarian” steps were needed, he says, to restore order after the chaos of the 1990s. He credits Mr. Putin with rebuilding Russia’s living standards and international prestige. “This isn’t the democracy that we will ultimately get to — it’s a transitional democracy.” Mr. Gorbachev’s support of Mr. Putin may surprise many in the West. But that cognitive dissonance reflects the gap between how Russia’s past 20 years are viewed at home and abroad. Many outside Russia see the 1990s as a time of democratic promise for Moscow. Inside Russia, it was seen as a decade of deprivation and chaos. Like millions of Russians, Mr. Gorbachev wanted the end of communist totalitarian rule, not of the Soviet Union itself. He believes the West took advantage of Russia’s weakness in the 1990s and is now uncomfortable with Mr. Putin, who has returned it to strength. Interview excerpts after the cut.