I really enjoyed reading both parts of this article.
This stopped me dead in my tracks, though.
"It obviously makes a big difference, however,
when the surrounding political culture is not only avowedly
democratic (as was the Soviet Union’s), but functionally so. "
Why does that stop you in your tracks? The colonel is simply saying that, while the Soviets paid lip service to (avowed) democratic values, the Soviet Union did not "function" as a democracy.