Democracy is not simply holding elections (which may or may not be carried out with openness and fair debate).

Democracy is about having a system of law and justice which is equal and fair for all, which is free of corruption, where the judiciary is independent of the legislature, where each person has fair and equal access to the law's protection.

Democracy is about freedom of expression, a free press, open access to information, and the right to express diverse points of view, without fear of harm to your person, your career or your interests.

Democracy is about serving all groups - including minorities and the poor - not just the powerful.

Democracy is about free and lively political debate, accountability, dissent, co-operation, discussion, sharing and development of ideas. It is about lively political life and an effective opposition capable of curbing the excesses of what might otherwise be an autocratic government.

Democracy is about not allowing money or power or influence or criminal activity to corrupt the pursuit of a free, fair and just society.

Otherwise, elections are just a mockery, just a facade, and may even be a mechanism and means to suppressing true democracy.

Now - many of these democratic 'deficits' may also be seen in countries like the US and the UK in various ways, and as one of the 80% of Britons who opposed the invasion of Iraq I'm well aware that the democratic will of the people can be ignored here in Britain as well as in Russia. Similarly, when the Blair Government ordered the prosecution of law-breakers in the arms industry to be dropped for fear of losing trade with Saudi Arabia, that was a wholly unacceptable interference of the legislature over what should be independent processes of law enforcement and judiciary.

And in the United States, it seems to me that wealth and corporate interests have a stranglehold on the political scene. So it is not just Russia.

But reading Anna Politkovskaya's damning appraisal of Putin's Russia and Putin's power and effective autocracy, I'm left with a feeling of dismay: a judiciary that suffers from widespread corruption, with interference both from political masters and criminals. A judiciary, moreover, which is frequently hostile or indifferent to 'inconvenient' citizens. A judiciary full of 'placemen' where promotion and career success is dependent of pleasing superiors and ultimately their political masters. A judiciary that is in no way independent of the legislature (or Presidential autocracy). A police force which can be turned on ordinary people, or used to support Russian underworld interests, or to seize assets. A resurgent KGB/FSB, endorsed by former FSB boss Putin, which is a law unto itself.

And then there's the growing control of the Russian media, and intimidation or buying out of dissenting channels. The use of that media to endorse the political interests of Putin. The closing down or capture of broadcasting stations. The intimidation or murder of those brave enough to be honest about the truth. What we have, beneath the facade of elections, is a drift back to Soviet-style suppression of press freedoms. Just as there is a drift back towards Soviet-style government, by edict from above, where opposition means career suicide or the threat of punitive measures against your interests.

Add to that, the very nasty and unpleasant racism and chauvinism that runs deep in many parts of Russian society today - endorsed by Putin's 'macho' political image, and his secret police bachground, and his appeal for popularity on the grounds of nationalism and the revival of the Army - and you can see that democratic protection of minorities can be almost non-existent... for example to Chechen families who live in Russia and are subject to attacks and arbitrary arrest and harrassment by police. And beyond that, the whole inane abnormal culture of the FSB and the Army, with its hundreds of deaths from beatings in its own ranks each year, and its disregard for the law beyond its own, in its own self-contained universe... and its atrocities in Chechnya... and the abandonment of legal protection of the innocent... the raping of women... the protection of soldiers who commit outrages... and all this, part of a 'macho' nationalistic Presidential promise to 'beat the crap out of our enemies'. Sadly, this ugly chauvinism exploits ignorance and prejudice in the electorate.

It's not that other countries do not have shortcomings in democratic principle. It's just that - reading Anna Politkovskaya's 'Putin's Russia' and I'm now reading her moving and intelligent 'A Russian Diary' - principle itself seems to be wholly subordinate to power, and power not for the people, but for the President and those vested interests who have locked themselves into a Single-Party project, where the Duma itself is reduced to a rubber-stamp role in carrying out the orders of the President, and where 'democracy' is a convenient facade to appease western concerns sufficiently for western leaders to feign blindness in the interests of trade and gas and oil. Chechnya says it all. Putin has tried to link it to the worldwide war on terror. But more than anyone else, it is the Chechen people who have been terrorised... by the Russian army. And western leaders have been craven in their silence.

In contrast, and for no other principle than decency, Anna Politkovskaya had the courage to complain.

Her murder was almost inevitable.