Seems to me that this line was meant to convey that Russia isn't as cleaned up as people might think. It would be similar to a line such as "companies are still doing what Enron did and getting away with it." I think its important to keep in mind that the author was probably not attempting hyperbole (even if that is what happened).
From that point of view, I think the author felt this was his clearest method of communicating his point. Not that I think it needed to be communicated (how many FP readers really think Russia is not corrupt...?) but that is seperate from your point.
From that point of view, I feel that what was written is sensible... though I freely admit that I'm not able to take into account how hurtful this might to some people.
Well, there are several points in the article including: 1) failure of the rule of law in Russia, as evidenced by legal issues encountered by the author and his attorney; 2) politically motivated killing of author's attorney.
In my comment I wasn't addressing point #1. With respect to point #2, I think there is a better analogy than Enron: imagine that NYT publishes an article about a cop tasering a Jewish man to death. If the article started with a line about "Holocaust by police force is alive and well", it would be entirely fair to call out NYT for false moral equivalence and bad judgment in publishing the article.
Why shouldn't we keep Foreign Policy to the same standard?
The point of my Enron example is to show what the Stalinism/gulag example is trying to do. In my view, they are trying to say "things haven't changed as much as you think." Of course, there are other ways to put this, but the author needed to balance out the sadness/horror/etc... he felt with being historically accurate[1]/sensitive.
[1] As some here have argued, he may have thought the historical analogy was accurate enough. Just from some of the replies, it can be argued that this view isn't totally nonsense.
From that point of view, I think the author felt this was his clearest method of communicating his point. Not that I think it needed to be communicated (how many FP readers really think Russia is not corrupt...?) but that is seperate from your point.
From that point of view, I feel that what was written is sensible... though I freely admit that I'm not able to take into account how hurtful this might to some people.