Putinism

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Putin the Great

10 Russian politicians depicted in matryoshka doll form: Left to right, Putin, Boris Yeltsin, Mikhail Gorbachev, Leonid Brezhnev (Konstantin Chernenko and Yuri Andropov appear to have been omitted), Nikita Khrushchev, Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Lenin, Czar Nicholas II (the last Czar); last two indiscernible

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The term Putinism or Putin regime describes the political system of contemporary Russia where much of political and financial powers are owned by "siloviks" — former "people with shoulder strips", coming from overall 22 governmental enforcement agencies, the main of them being FSB, Police, Army. ^{[1] [2] [3]}. The system was mostly established under leadership of Russian president Vladimir Putin and therefore named after him. ^{[4] [5]}. According to columnist Arnold Beichman, "Putinism in the 21st century has become as significant a watchword as Stalinism was in the 20th" ^[6] However, according to Russian journalist Yevgeniya Albats, in Russia "there is no stalinism and no concentration camps — thanks to God, there's none of them". ^[7]

The "chekist takeover" of the Russian state and economic assets has been allegedly accomplished by a clique of Putin's close associates and friends who gradually became a leading group of Russian oligarchs and who "seized control over the financial, media and administrative resources of the Russian state"^[8] and restricted democratic freedoms and human rights^[9]. According to some scholars, Russia has been transformed to "FSB state" ^{[10] [11]}. Putin himself admitted that "there is no such thing as a former KGB man" ^[12] and that "a group of FSB colleagues dispatched to work undercover in the government has successfully completed its first mission." ^[13]

Russian sociologist Olga Kryshtanovskaya believes there was no seizure of power, but siloviks were called into service by Russian elites, their rise into power starting from about 1996. ^[1]

In the same time, Russian Doctor of History Andranik Migranyan sees Putin regime as restoring natural functions of the government after period of 1990s, when Russia was allegedly ruled by oligopolies expressing only their narrow interests. He said, "If democracy is the rule by a majority and the protection of the rights and opportunities of a minority, the current political regime can be described as democratic, at least formally. A multiparty political system exists in Russia, while several parties, most of them representing the opposition, have seats in the State Duma."^[8]

Former Securitate general, defector and CIA contingent cooperator Ion Mihai Pacepa speculates in interview for conservative FrontPage Magazine:

"In the Soviet Union, the KGB was a state within a state. Now former KGB officers are running the state. They have custody of the country’s 6,000 nuclear weapons, entrusted to the KGB in the 1950s, and they now also manage the strategic oil industry renationalized by Putin. The KGB successor, rechristened FSB, still has the right to electronically monitor the population, control political groups, search homes and businesses, infiltrate the federal government, create its own front enterprises, investigate cases, and run its own prison system. The Soviet Union had one KGB officer for every 428 citizens. Putin’s Russia has one FSB-ist for every 297 citizens." ^{[14] [15]}

In reality, different 2006 estimates show that Russia has above 200,000 members of FSB, or one FSB-ist for every 700 citizens of Russia (exact number of FSB staff is a state secret of Russian Federation). ^[16] General Staff of the Russian Ministry of Defence, as well as staff of Russian Strategic Rocket Forces aren't submitted to the Federal Security Service^[17], although FSB might be interested in monitoring these structures, as they intrinsically involve state secrets and various degrees of admittance to them. ^[18] The Law on Federal Security Service which defines its functions and establishes its structure doesn't involve such tasks as managing strategic branches of national industry, controlling political groups, or infiltrating the federal government. ^[19]

[edit] What is Putinism?

Sociologists, economists and politologists emphazise different features of the system.

[edit] Sociological studies

Sociological investigation unveiling the phenomena was done in 2004 by Olga Kryshtanovskaya, who has determined the portion of siloviks in Russian political elite as 25%. ^[1] In Putin's "inner circle" which constitutes about 20 people, amount of siloviks rises to 58%, and fades to 18-20% in Parliament and 34% in the Government. ^[1] According to Kryshtanovskaya, there was no capture of power as Kremlin bureocracy has called siloviks in order to "restore order". The process of siloviks coming into power has allegedly started since 1996, Boris Yeltsin's second term. "Not personally Yeltsin, but the whole elite wished to stop the revolutionary process and consolidate the power." When silovik Vladimir Putin was appointed Prime Minister in 1999, the process boosted. According to Olga, "Yes, Putin has brought siloviks with him. But that's not enough to understand the situation. Here's also an objective aspect: the whole political class wished them to come. They were called for service... There was a need of a strong arm, capable from point of view of the elite to establish order in the country." ^[1]

Kryshtanovskaya has also noted that there were people who had worked in structures "affiliated" with KGB/FSB. Structures usually considered as such are the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Governmental Communications Commission, Ministry of Foreign Trade, Press Agency News and others. "The itself work in such agencies doesn't involve necessary contacts with special services, but makes to think about it." ^[20] Summing up numbers of official and "affiliated" siloviks she got an estimate of 77% of such in the power. ^[1]

According to Russian Public Opinion Foundation 2005 investigation, 34% of respondents think "there is a lack of democracy in Russia because democratic rights and freedoms are not observed", and also point on the lack of law and order. In the same time, 21% of respondents are sure there's too much of democracy in Russia; many of them point on the same drawbacks as the previous group: "the lack of law and order, irresponsibility and non-accountability of politicians". According to the Foundation, "As we can see, Russians' negative opinions about democracy are based on their dissatisfaction with contemporary conditions, while some respondents think the democratic model is not suitable in principal." Considering the modern regime, "It is interesting that most respondents think Putin's government marks the most democratic epoch in Russian history (29%), while second place goes to Brezhnev's times (14%). Some people mentioned Gorbachev and Yeltsin in this context (11% and 9%, respectively)"^[21]

[edit] Corporation-state

Some economists consider the political system in Russia as a variety of corporatism. According to Andrei Illarionov, advisor of Vladimir Putin before 2005, this is a new socio-political order, "distinct from any seen in our country before". He said that members of the Corporation of Intelligence Service Collaborators took over the entire body of state power, follow an omerta-like behavior code, and "are given instruments conferring power over others – membership “perks”, such as the right to carry and use weapons". According to Illarionov, this "Corporation has seized key government agencies – the Tax Service, Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Parliament, and the government-controlled mass media – which are now used to advance the interests of [Corporation] members. Through these agencies, every significant resource of the country – security/intelligence, political, economic, informational and financial – is being monopolized in the hands of Corporation members" ^[22]

Members of the Corporation created an isolated caste. According to an anonymous former KGB general cited by The Economist, “A Chekist is a breed... A good KGB heritage—a father or grandfather, say, who worked for the service—is highly valued by today's siloviki. Marriages between siloviki clans are also encouraged ^[23].

Jason Bush, chief of the Moscow bureau of the magazine Business Week has commented in December 2006 on troubling in his opinion growth of government's role: "The Kremlin has taken control of some two dozen Russian companies since 2004, including oil assets from Sibneft and Yukos, as well as banks, newspapers, and more. Despite his sporadic support for pro-market reforms, Putin has backed national champions such as energy concerns Gazprom and Rosneft. The private sector's share of output fell from 70% to 65% last year, while state-controlled companies now represent 38% of stock market capitalization, up from 22% a year ago." ^[24]

[edit] Intelligence state

Professional affiliations of the government workers in modern Russia according to Andrey Illarionov

"Under Russian Federation President and former career foreign intelligence officer Vladimir Putin, an "FSB State" composed of chekists has been established and is consolidating its hold on the country. Its closest partners are organized criminals. In a world marked by a globalized economy and information infrastructure, and with transnational terrorism groups utilizing all available means to achieve their goals and further their interests, Russian intelligence collaboration with these elements is potentially disastrous.", said politologist Julie Anderson ^[10]

Historian Yuri Felshtinsky compared takeover of Russian state by siloviks with an imaginary scenario of Gestapo coming to power in Germany after World War II. He noted a fundamental difference between the secret police and ordinary political parties, even totalitarian ones, such as the Soviet Communist Party. The Russian secret police organizations used to various violent active measures. Hence they killed Alexander Litvinenko and directed Russian apartment bombings and other terrorism acts in Russia to frighten the civilian polulation and achieve their political objectives, according to Felstinsky ^[25]

Distribution of executive cars with "beacons" (in modern Russia permissions to violate road rules is considered an important status mark) among branches of power according to Andrey Illarionov

Former KGB officer Konstantin Preobrazhenskiy shares similar ideas. When asked "How many people in Russia work in FSB?", he replied: "Whole country. FSB owns everything, including Russian Army and even own Church, the Russian Orthodox Church‎... Putin managed to create new social system in Russia" [2].

However, when a prominent Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn answered in 2007 the question of Der Spiegel whether the Orthodox Church has became a "state Church", serving as a means to legitimize the "Kremlin Lord as God's Anointed sovereign", Solzhenitsyn said: "Vice versa, one should be surprised on how in few years which has passed since the times when the Church was totally submitted to the Communist state it has managed to gain sufficiently independent position". ^[26]

"Vladimir Putin's Russia is a new phenomenon in Europe: a state defined and dominated by former and active-duty security and intelligence officers. Not even fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, or the Soviet Union — all undoubtedly much worse creations than Russia - were as top-heavy with intelligence talent", said former Middle East specialist at the CIA, Reuel Marc Gerecht. ^[27]

[edit] Single-party bureaucratic state

Russian politician Boris Nemtsov and commentator Kara-Murza define Putinism in Russia as "a one party system,censorship, a puppet parliament, ending of an independent judiciary, firm centralization of power and finances, and hypertrophied role of special services and bureaucracy, in particular in relation to business" ^[28]

[edit] Bandit capitalism

Freedom House Index of Russia as percentage to the average OECD data, Calculations by Andrei Illarionov

Political analyst Andrei Piontkovsky considers Putinism as "the highest and culminating stage of bandit capitalism in Russia” ^[29]. He believes that "Russia is not corrupt. Corruption is what happens in all countries when businessmen offer officials large bribes for favors. Today’s Russia is unique. The businessmen, the politicians, and the bureaucrats are the same people. They have privatized the country’s wealth and taken control of its financial flows." ^[30]

Such views are also shared by politologist Julie Anderson who said the same person can be a Russian intelligence officer, an organized criminal, and a businessman ^[10]. She also cited former CIA director James Woolsey who said: "I have been particularly concerned for some years, beginning during my tenure, with the interpenetration of Russian organized crime, Russian intelligence and law enforcement, and Russian business. I have often illustrated this point with the following hypothetical: If you should chance to strike up a conversation with an articulate, English-speaking Russian in, say, the restaurant of one of the luxury hotels along Lake Geneva, and he is wearing a $3,000 suit and a pair of Gucci loafers, and he tells you that he is an executive of a Russian trading company and wants to talk to you about a joint venture, then there are four possibilities. He may be what he says he is. He may be a Russian intelligence officer working under commercial cover. He may be part of a Russian organized crime group. But the really interesting possibility is that he may be all three and that none of those three institutions have any problem with the arrangement." ^[31]

According to politologist Glinsky, "The idea of Russia, Inc.--or better, Russia, Ltd.--derives from the Russian brand of libertarian anarchism viewing the state as just another private armed gang claiming special rights on the basis of its unusual power." "This is a state conceived as a "stationary bandit" imposing stability by eliminating the roving bandits of the previous era.", he said.^[32]

In April 2006, Putin himself expressed extreme irritation about the de-facto privatization of the customs sphere, where smart officials and entrepreneurs "merged in ecstasy" (Moscow News, April 21).^[33]

[edit] Restoring functionality of the government

Russian Doctor of History Andranik Migranyan in his 2004 article observes Putin regime from a different perspective^[8].

According to Migranyan, Putin came into office when the worst regime was established; it was "totally decentralized; the state had lost central authority, while the oligarchs robbed the country and controlled its power institutions." In two years Putin has restored hierarchy of power, ending the omnipotence of regional elites as well as destroying political influence of "oligarchs and oligopolies in the federal center." The Family, Yeltsin-era non-institutional center of power was ruined. According to Migranyan, that has ruined positions of those actors who sought to privatize the Russian state "with all of its resources and institutions". ^[8]

Migranyan said, Putin began establishing common rules of the game for all actors, and started with an attempt to restore the role of the government as the institution expressing combined interests of the citizens and "capable of controlling the state’s financial, administrative and media resources". According to Migranyan, "Naturally, in line with Russian traditions, any attempt to increase the state’s role causes an intense repulsion on the part of the liberal intellectuals, not to mention a segment of the business community that is not interested in the strengthening of state power until all of the most attractive state property has been seized." Migranyan claimed that oligopolies' view of democracy was set on a premise of whether they were close to the center of power, rather than "objective characteristics and estimates of the situation in the country". Migranyan said "free" media owned by e.g. Berezovsky and Gusinsky, were nothing similar to free media as understood by the West, but served their only economic and political interests, while "all other politicians and analysts were denied the right to go on the air." ^[8]

Migranyan sees enhancement of the role of the law enforcement agencies as a trial to set barriers against criminals, "particularly those in big business". ^[8]

Migranyan sees in 2004 fruition of the social revolution initiated by Gorbachev, whose aims were to rebuild the social system: "the absolute dominance of private ownership in Russia, recognized by all political forces today, has been the greatest achievement and result of this social revolution." ^[8]

The major trouble of Russian democracy, according to Migranyan, is unability of civil society to rule the state, underdevelopment of public interests. He sees that as the consequence of Yeltsin's era Family-ruled state being unable to pursue "a favorable environment for mid-sized and small businesses". Migranyan sees modern Russia as democracy, at least formally. While "the state, having restored its effectiveness and control over its own resources, has become the largest corporation responsible for establishing the rules of the game", Migranyan wonders how much might this influence extend in future. In 2004 he saw two possibilities for the Putin regime: either transformation into a consolidated democracy, either bureaucratic authoritarianism. However, "if Russia is lagging behind the developed capitalist nations in regard to the consolidation of democracy, it is not the quality of democracy, but rather its amount and the balance between civil society and the state." ^[8]

[edit] Rise of middle class in Russia

During Putin's terms in office, economical position of the Russian middle class has sufficiently improved. In 2000, some 8% to 20% of the nation's 145 million population were qualified as such. ^[34] In December 2006, as the chief of Business Week's Moscow bureau Jason Bush reported, "This group has grown from just 8 million in 2000 to 55 million today and now accounts for some 37% of the population ... That's giving a lift to the mood in the country. The share of Russians who think life is 'not bad' has risen to 23% from just 7% in 1999, while those who find living conditions 'unacceptable' has dropped to 29% from 53%, according to a recent poll." ^[24]

However, growing middle class doesn't show much of political activity, as Masha Lipman reports: "As with the majority overall, those in the middle-income group have accepted the paternalism of Vladimir Putin's government and remained apolitical and apathetic." ^[35]

[edit] Ideology

Some observers discuss ideology of new Russian political elite. Politologist Irina Pavlova said that chekists are not merely a corporation of people united to expropriate financial assets. They have long-standing political objectives of transforming Moscow to the Third Rome and ideology of "containing" the United States ^[36] Columnist George Will emphasized the nationalistic nature of Putinism. He said that "Putinism is becoming a toxic brew of nationalism directed against neighboring nations, and populist envy, backed by assaults of state power, directed against private wealth. Putinism is a national socialism without the demonic element of its pioneer..." [3]. According to Illarionov, the ideology of chekists is Nashism (“ours-ism”), the selective application of rights". ^[22]

Head of the Moscow Carnegie Center Dmitri Trenin expressed in 2004 his different opinion on this subject. According to him, modern Russia is one of the least ideological countries around the world. He said: "Ideas hardly matter, whereas interests reign supreme. It is not surprising then that the worldview of Russian elites is focused on financial interests. Their practical deeds in fact declare In capital we trust." Trenin describes Russia's elite involved in the process of policy making as people who largely own the country. Most of them aren't public politicians, but the majority are bureaucratic capitalists. According to Trenin, "having survived in a ruthless domestic business and political environment, Russian leaders are well adjusted to rough competition and will take that mindset to the world stage." However, Trenin calls Russian-Western relationships from Moscow’s perspective as "competitive but not antagonistic". He said, "Russia does not crave world domination, and its leaders do not dream of restoring the Soviet Union. They plan to rebuild Russia as a great power with a global reach, organized as a supercorporation." ^[37]

According to Trenin, Russians "no longer recognize U.S. or European moral authority", i.e. values gap. He said, "from the Russian perspective, there is no absolute freedom anywhere in the world, no perfect democracy, and no government that does not lie to its people. In essence, all are equal by virtue of sharing the same imperfections. Some are more powerful than others, however, and that is what really counts." ^[37]

Russian political sciencist Gleb Pavlovsky believes that "Putin builds world Russia" as opposed to national Russia. According to Pavlovsky, Russian power has to be a model one, i.e. the power which proposes itself to others as a kind of an actual model (e.g., American power is an example of such one). ^[38]

[edit] Other opinions on the Putin regime

According to 2007 article of Dimitri Simes, published in Foreign Affairs, "With high energy prices, sound fiscal policies, and tamed oligarchs, the Putin regime no longer needs international loans or economic assistance and has no trouble attracting major foreign investment despite growing tension with Western governments. Within Russia, relative stability, prosperity, and a new sense of dignity have tempered popular disillusionment with growing state control and the heavy-handed manipulation of the political process." ^[39]

Diplomatic correspondent for the BBC Bridget Kendall in her 2007 article, after describing the "scarred decade" of 1990s with "rampant hyperinflation", harsh Yeltsin's policies, population decrease rate like that for a nation in a war, the country turning "from superpower into beggar", wonders: "So who can blame Russians for welcoming the relative stability Putin has presided over during the past seven years, even if other aspects of his rule have cast an authoritarian shadow? In the back-to-front world of Russian politics, it is not too little democracy that many people fear, but too much of it. This, I discovered, is why some are calling for Putin to stay on for a third term. Not because they admire him — privately, many say that he and his cronies are just as corrupt and disdainful of others as their communist predecessors were — but because they mistrust the idea of democracy, resent the west for pushing it, and fear what might happen as a result of next year's elections. Recent experience has taught them that change is usually for the worse and best avoided." ^[40]

As Jonathan Steele has commented in 2007: "After the chaos of the 90s, highlighted by Yeltsin's attack on the Russian parliament with tanks in 1993 and the collapse of almost every bank in 1998, Putin has delivered political calm and a 7% annual rate of growth. Inequalities have increased and many of the new rich are grotesquely crass and cruel, but not all the Kremlin's vast revenues from oil and gas have gone into private pockets or are being hoarded in the government's "stabilisation fund". Enough has gone into modernising schools and hospitals so that people notice a difference. Overall living standards are up. The second Chechen war, the major blight on Putin's record, is almost over."^[41]

[edit] See also

• Yeltsinism
• Corporatism
• Chekism
• Putin's Russia

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

• Edward Lucas The New Cold War: Putin's Russia and the Threat to the West , Palgrave Macmillan (February 19, 2008), ISBN 0230606121.^[1]
• Putin’s Militocracy by Olga Kryshtanovskaya and Stephen White
• Russia under Putin. The making of a neo-KGB state., The Economist, Aug 23, 2007
• Russia's government. Putin's people., The Economist, Aug 23, 2007
• The power of Chekists is incredibly stable by Olga Kryshtanovskaya
• The Chekist Takeover of the Russian State, Anderson, Julie (2006), International Journal of Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence, 19:2, 237 - 288.
• The HUMINT Offensive from Putin's Chekist State Anderson, Julie (2007), International Journal of Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence, 20:2, 258 - 316
• Russia: Death and resurrection of the KGB By J. Michael Waller, Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization
• A Rogue Intelligence State? Why Europe and America Cannot Ignore Russia By Reuel Marc Gerecht
• Siloviki model collection of publications about the Siloviki model on website of the Institute for Economic Analysis (Russian)/(English)
• Living Larger in the New Russia, by Gregory L. White, November 3, 2007

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Vladimir Putin and his corporate gangsters by Sebastian Smith, The Daily Telegraph, 21/03/2008