U nder Putin, communism wasn’t reborn in name. But the red stain from those decades of communism persists in the government’s oppression of civil liberties, its embrace of intolerance and its brutish intimidation — land grabs included — of its neighbors. Russians still live in a society where elections are largely meaningless, where opposition is quickly quelled, where free expression — either in the media or on the street — can bring the murderous wrath of the Kremlin. Moscow’s political opponents can still find themselves locked away for years in prison or asylums — or dead. The Soviet communist assassinations of activists, dissidents and people seen as politically dangerous to the regime were commonplace dating back to the birth of Bolshevik rule. Today’s list of victims? We know them well: Alexander Litvinenko, Anna Politkovskaya, Sergei Magnitsky, Boris Nemtsov … and on and on.