It seems to me that Russia has always favored dictators over democratic rulers. I just finished War and Peace, in that book the monarch of Russia was considered godlike by some, although this was in the 1800's I don't find it unusual, everyone country had a phase where the monarch in power was basically seen as a god. But putting all that faith in one person never went away for Russia, the Tsars and Tsarinas, Lenin, Stalin, Krushchev, and now Putin, all consolidated power in some way and no movement stopped them. Why do they have such a history of it?
I've touched on this before, in this thread. I won't regurgitate that content but I think the central assumption here is somewhat flawed in that it supposes a continuous political culture or set of factors that produce Russian dictatorships. Whatever the linkages between them, the conditions that sustained the Tsardom, USSR and Putin's Russia were different and each deserve to be studied in their own right.
I go into slightly more detail on my issues with this in the above link.