Moscow ? There was a time when the word “perestroika” evoked visions of hope and change.

The term means “reconstruction,” and what was being rebuilt in those heady years of the late 1980s was the Soviet Union’s entire relationship with its citizens and the world outside.

These days, many Russians talk about perestroika with more scorn than reverence because millions here have been plunged into poverty by its free market reforms. People have become so disenchanted with the restructuring that leaders of Russia’s democratic movement have been warning of a backlash.

Alexander N. Yakovlev, the man widely acknowledged to be the architect of perestroika, said recently that Russia’s democratic revolution was in danger of reversing course after 15 years of political reform.

Yakovlev crafted much of the reform instituted by former Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

In an interview at the office of the Moscow-based program he heads, the International Democracy Foundation, Yakovlev, 80, said Putin had shown signs early on of returning to Russia’s Soviet past. In 2000, at the end of his first year as president, he restored the former Soviet national anthem with updated lyrics.

Putin’s more recent steps, proposals to eliminate independent seats in the parliament and cancel direct election of regional governors are equally worrying, he said.