Vladimir Putin has presided over Russia for more than twenty years. Here, Brenden Woldman returns to the site (a previous article from him on why the USSR collapsed is here) and in this extensive and thought-provoking piece, considers how Vladimir Putin came to dominate Russian politics. He considers how Putin has exploited terrorism, destabilized democracy, controlled the media, and arrested and even killed opposition.
Vladimir Putin in 1998, when he was Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) Director. Source: RIA Novosti archive, image #100306, http://visualrian.ru/ru/site/gallery/#100306 Digital / Цифра, available here.
Who decides the leaders of a country? The answer, according to those who live in the west, is simple: the people. Citizens have the inalienable right to decide who will lead their country through a fair, legal, and democratic process. This western belief in the voting process for representative government is a pillar for a successful democratic society. But what if a country falsely claims to be democratic? Who decides, then, the leaders of a country that pretends to be a country that is founded on democratic and republican principles? In the case of modern Russia, it is current President Vladimir Putin.
In Russia, President Putin has an iron clasp grip on all aspects of Russian society, including the country’s political institutions. Director General of NTV media company Yevgeniy Kiselyev gives the most succinct way of understanding Putin’s control of Russia. Kiselyev believes that, “The president has different ideas to ours about what the state is and what its interests are. I think Putin is trying to imitate Louis XIV, who said ‘the state is me.’ Putin... made it clear that what he means by strengthening the state is strengthening his personal power.”[1]In short, Putin is the state and the state is Putin. This firm ideology that the former KGB agent has is a vital reason why he has undisputed power in Russia. However, it must be known that Putin’s current anaconda-like suffocation of Russia did not occur over night.
When Boris Yeltsin became the first President of the Russian Federation and the face of the post-Soviet era after the fall of the U.S.S.R., he was greeted with much enthusiasm and support throughout Russia. Though beloved, the honeymoon phase between Yeltsin and the Russian people would not last. As the 1990s progressed, Yeltsin’s popularity would falter due to his inability to establish the new democratic Russian state as a major economic or political power. Also, the President’s warm, welcoming, and almost subservient attitude toward the west caused many Russians to view Yeltsin as a weak embarrassment. With Yeltsin’s influence slipping and his days numbered, a group of governors that made up nearly a quarter of the entire Russian Federation in the fall of 1999 wrote a letter to Yeltsin, pleading that to sustain power it was necessary to resign from the Presidency and transfer power over to newly appointed Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.[2]Yeltsin followed up on this idea, and on December 31, 1999 Vladimir Putin became the acting President of the Russian Federation. Yet it was far from guaranteed that Putin would be able to keep power for decades to come.
As the new millennium came into fruition and the Yeltsin-led 1990s faded into the past, the newly crowned President-Tsar of Russia needed to secure his power fast. To do this, Vladimir Putin subsequently had to achieve four goals: exploit the fears of Chechen terrorism, control the media, strip away any democratic power or institution that could curb his ambitions, and imprison or kill oligarchs, journalists, political rivals, and any person that may be a threat to his reign. Putin has achieved supremacy in Russia. However, it did not occur overnight, as these four aspects were successfully executed over the course of a decade.
Exploiting Terrorism
Before Putin was President, the conflict in Chechnya was becoming more and more prevalent. The Second Chechen War began in August of 1999 when Yeltsin was still President. Between September 4thand 16th, unidentified terrorists bombed four apartment complexes in multiple Russian cities, including Moscow. The attacks led to the deaths of 293 people and injured 1,000 more.[3]The immediate, and initially the most logical, group to blame were Chechen rebels.
However, upon further investigation of the bombings it became increasingly plausible that Chechnya was not responsible for the attacks. In fact, Chechnya did not take claim for the attacks, something that all terrorist groups usually do after a successful attack. Even more peculiar was that there was no solid evidence that connected the Chechen rebels to the attacks.[4]Moreover, a military operation on this scale was out of the realm of possibility from a logistical or strategic point of view even if Chechen terrorists wanted to attack. What evidence that wasfound did not connect the bombings to Chechnya. Instead, the evidence connected them to the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, or FSB. Only Yeltsin and his cronies, which included Putin, were able to have the FSB coordinate the bombings. But why would Yeltsin and Putin support the killing of Russians? The Yeltsin administration believed that Russia could be unified in its hatred of Chechnya and terrorism while also boosting the appeal of Yeltsin’s successor Vladimir Putin.[5]This was not a far-fetched assumption either, as it became increasingly likely that Yeltsin, who had been in the pockets of oligarchs and gangsters, would do something so terrifyingly unethical to keep his inner circle in power.[6]
Upon hearing the news of the bombings, newly appointed Prime Minister Putin had a firm response to the attacks stating that, “[Russia] will pursue the terrorists everywhere.”[7]Putin’s desire for violent revenge rang in the ears of the Russian citizenry. As a result, the second invasion of Chechnya was carried out more methodically and was seemingly more successful when comparing it to the first Chechen invasion on New Year’s Night in 1994-95, and Putin was given much of the credit for the initial victory. Due to this, the young Prime Minister’s popularity soared.[8]
With Yeltsin’s term coming to an end and a new President on the horizon, Putin was initially seen as a weak candidate to succeed Yeltsin. Shortly after his appointment as Prime Minister in August 1999, polls revealed that only 2 percent of the Russian populace favored Putin for the position of President.[9]However, after the “terrorist” attacks and Putin’s strong response to them coinciding with the patriotic enthusiasm that came from a new war, support for Putin rose to 21 percent in October and then 45 percent in November, which was far higher than any other candidate at that point.[10]This rise in popularity because of the attacks made Yeltsin’s decision all the easier and, on December 31, 1999, Boris Yeltsin resigned from office, allowing Putin to become President due to Russian law which permits the prime minister to become acting president, after the president resigns, for the rest of the term.
By being one of the planners of the FSB terrorist bombings and blaming Chechnya for it, Vladimir Putin was able to manipulate the Russian populace into supporting him, as he portrayed himself as the strong, vengeful leader Russia needed in those troubling times, even though evidence shows that Putin was one of the people who helped plan and execute the attacks. Nevertheless, it is important to note that Putin was not the mastermind of the attacks. Instead, he was an important cog in the Yeltsin regime. This would not always be the case, as from this point forward everything that Putin does will come directly from him to solidify his place as supreme ruler of Russia.
With the terrorist attacks catapulting him into the spotlight and Yeltsin’s resignation, by the year 2000 Putin had become the second President of the Russian Federation and was popular for it. However, Putin never wanted to give up this power once achieving it. This leads to a major theme that will be seen throughout Russia in the twenty-first century, as Putin will begin to strip major democratic principles that are vital to a healthy democracy all for the purpose to keep him in power.
Destabilizing Democracy
Yeltsin was such a laughing stock by the time he resigned that Russians and westerners alike saw Putin with rose-colored glasses. Many began to believe that it was impossible for the new president to be any more embarrassing than Yeltsin. They were right in a way. Though Putin was not as prone to the frequent political gaffes that Yeltsin faced, the idealistic vision of Putin that many had quickly evaporated when the 2000 election saw Putin use dirty and illegal tactics to assure his victory.
By the time of the election in March, Putin had been acting president for almost three months. A week before the election the Russian newspaper Kommersantpublished a leaked government document entitled ‘Reform of the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation‘ that advocated the FSB to do Putin’s bidding, with the goal of allowing Putin to “control the political process” in Russia.[11]There was little debate against Kommersant’saccusations. Putin was using the FSB as his own “Praetorian Guard,” as the new President used the FSB to manipulate the Russian state and presidential process by making it more authoritarian. The document most damningly noted that Putin had a dream of “replacing the ‘self-regulating’ nature of a democratic, market-driven, and rule-by-law system with manual control from the top.”[12]Putin’s dream would quickly come to fruition.
Six days after he was inaugurated, Putin proposed a set of bills with aims of “strengthening vertical power”, which served as the beginning of his dismantlement of the Russian democratic government and the establishment of a Putin led autocracy.[13]By claiming that the autocratic tendencies were necessary for reinvigorating Russia as a global leader, bills were passed that replaced elected members of parliament with ones that were Putin approved, allowing elected governors to be removed from office by pseudo suspicions of misdoings without a trial, and permitting envoys that were appointed by the President to supervise elected legislatures and governors.[14]Autocratic bills like this were quickly passed through the Russian Duma without protest and the dismantlement of the Russian constitution began in an almost unrecognized fashion by the outside world. However, this would not be the only time that Putin would force through legislation that centralized his political power.
With reelection approaching in March 2004, President Putin had five opponents running to usurp him. To curb their intentions, Putin passed laws to hinder his opponent’s campaigns and break the spirit of the election process. The president passed a law that required campaigns to have a notary certify the presence and signatures of every person present at meetings where presidential candidates were nominated with a minimum of five hundred signatures needed, followed by the candidate needing two million signatures from the public a few weeks after to have the campaign be legal or risk disqualification. This was a tough enough task that was made more difficult, as signatures could be disqualified for spelling errors.[15]Those able to successfully qualify to run found it difficult to find companies to print their campaign material, air their commercials, or rent areas for campaign events, as it became increasingly clear that Putin and his inner circle had threatened any and all who would support opposition campaigns. One candidate, Sergei Glazyev, found it nearly impossible to find a printing company to take his campaign’s legal funds to print his flyers.[16]When he did find someone who was willing to let him hold a campaign event, the building where Glazyev was going to speak was suddenly raided by police due to a “bomb threat,” giving the police justification to kick everyone out of the building and evacuate the premises. Moreover, physical violence was either threatened or executed, as Glazyev’s campaign manager Yana Dubeykovskaya was once beaten, robbed, and had the brake lines to her car cut.[17]
Making the campaign process difficult for candidates was not enough for the ambitious Putin. To truly disrupt the spirit of democracy, Putin wanted to make the voting process difficult. International observers and independent Russian organizations outside of government control listed a plethora of voting violations that the Putin administration promoted. These transgressions included the deletion of over a million elderly people and others unlikely to vote from the record, effectively voiding their vote, the delivery of ballots that were prefilled to psychiatric wards, the allowance of precinct staff to go door to door in elderly homes with a mobile ballot box to collect votes for Putin and disregard ones for other candidates, and managers and school officials were blackmailing staff and parents to vote for Putin or risk termination.[18]These neo-Soviet style tactics of maintaining the “democratic” process of Putin’s Russia was like an iceberg. On the surface there was no obvious or violent form of voter suppression, but below the surface was a widespread conspiracy of democratic repression. Legal or not, the 2004 election came and went, and with 71% of the vote, Putin won the presidency.
Soon after he began his second term, Putin announced that governors and the mayor of Moscow were no longer able to be elected by the people. Instead, Putin would appoint them personally. As well, the lower house of the Duma would no longer be decided by a direct election, with Russian citizens being given the right to vote for a party and Putin filling in the vacated seats with members that were a part of that party. This ruling forced all political parties to re-register, and many would be eliminated in the process. Moreover, all legislation proposed by the lower house of the Duma would be vetted by a public chamber that was appointed by Putin. All these changes became law rather quickly, and by the end of 2004 the only federal-level public official who was directly elected was Putin himself.[19]
When his second term ended in 2008, Putin found a simple but effective way to go around the Russian Constitution to keep himself in power. Due to the Russian Constitution forbidding the President to rule for more than two consecutive terms, Putin relinquished his power to his hand-picked successor Dmitry Medvedev (with Putin using illegal election tactics to get Medvedev elected), followed by Medvedev appointing Putin as prime minister, allowing the former president to become “the puppet master of Russia.” Following the whims of his overlord, Medvedev introduced a measure that would extend presidential terms from four to six years.[20]If executed correctly, Putin planned for Medvedev to be a “manchurian president,” all the while allowing himself to pull the strings behind the scenes like a mafia Godfather. This plan worked to perfection. After one term in office Medvedev did not seek to run for a second term, instead endorsing Putin to return to the presidency in 2012. This act subsequently established a trend that not only could legally keep Putin in power for the rest of his life, but also effectively dismantle any remnants of a democratic system that were left in Russia.
Controlling the Media
It is almost cliché to say that a free press is the most dangerous opponent to an autocratic system, as the institution can inform the public on the misdeeds of the government. However, what happens when the leader of an autocracy establishes a monopoly on media outlets? In Putin’s Russia, it allows the free press to transform into a state-run institution.
In the days leading to the 2000 election, a key component to Putin’s ‘Reform of the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation’ was for the FSB to not only “control the political process” but specifically silence opposition media by “driving them to financial crisis.”[21]Putin knew the importance of controlling media and the television market since the medium helped create the positive image that many within Russia had of him after Yeltsin resigned. Putin knew the medium could turn on him and quickly end his political career if the industry was left unchecked.
To create a state-run monopoly of media Putin used personal vendettas against those who opposed him to drive his actions. Putin summoned Boris Berezovsky, the would-be “kingmaker” of Russian politics and head of one of Russia’s largest news and television networks Channel One, and tried to persuade him to handover his majority shares to the Russian government.[22]If Berezovsky did not willingly give up his shares, Putin implied that he would blackmail Berezovsky into giving him the control of Channel One and subsequently would be imprisoned for his refusal to comply.[23]The oligarch refused, knowing that crossing Putin in this manner would lead to his arrest. Days after his meeting with the President, Berezovsky fled to Great Britain. Soon enough, a warrant was out for Berezovsky’s arrest in Russia, forcing him to surrender his shares in Channel One.[24]
This kind of “thuggish” behavior to acquire media shares was not unique to Berezovsky and Channel One. The first attack was aimed at anti-Putin media mogul and owner of news channel NTV and newspaper Sevodnya Vladimir Gusinskiy. Gusinskiy and his company had a history of producing anti-Putin rhetoric, including the airing of a documentary about the apartment building explosions two days prior in the 2000 election.[25]This negative portrayal of Putin would not go unnoticed. On May 11, 2000, Gusinsky’s Media-Most company headquarters were raided by government officials and Gusinskiy was arrested a month later.[26]From prison, Gusinskiy made the dramatic declaration that Putin had, “begun the move toward the creation of a totalitarian regime.”[27]Nonetheless, in a deal that would drop all criminal charges and let him flee the country unharmed, Gusinskiy agreed to sell his shares in NTV and renounce all statements or information that would be considered to undermine the Putin government and the Russian Federation. Though Gusinskiy was given his freedom, by April 2001 the Russian state had majority control of Gusinskiy’s media assets, as the old staff of NTV and Media-Most were replaced with Putin and state approved journalists and commentators.[28]
In quick and decisive actions, Putin was able to force two of Russia’s wealthiest men, and his biggest threats, into self-exile while also stripping any wealth and influence that Gusinskiy and Berezovsky had within Russia. This took all of three months to achieve after he was inaugurated. Alas, the Putin led government was able to gain complete control of the three largest federal television networks.[29]Without any opposition networks that could reach the masses, Putin was now able to manipulate the media to unanimously presenting him and his policies in a positive light.
Arresting and Killing Opposition
What is most famous, and heinous, of Putin’s tactics to solidify his power is his tendency to imprison or murder those who oppose him. Putin got this reputation of being a thug by his own doing, as he preferred to be portrayed as a brute above all else.[30]A part of his thuggish reputation comes from his relationship with oligarchs. However, Putin is not a crusader against oligarchs for moral reasons. For the most part, Putin continues to maintain a relatively warm relationship with oligarchs due to his plan to transform the traditional oligarchic independent system into one that is more accustomed to a corporate structure, with the oligarchs and their industries serving the state.[31]In short, the president wants the oligarchs to be under him, allowing the former laissez-faire style of capitalist industry to be under the control of Putin. However, those oligarchs who do not comply will face devastating consequences.
As previously noted, oligarchs like Gusinsky and Berezovsky were forced to flee Russia or face imprisonment. However, they were not the only ones to be treated to this fate. For example, Mikhail Khodorkovsky was the richest man in Russia in the early 2000s. Yet when he fell out of favor with Putin due to his independent and vocal spirit, he was quickly arrested on charges of tax evasion. This may have been the official reason for the arrest but, as economic advisor to Putin Andrei Illarionov believes, Khodorkovsky, “was-and remains-an independent human being. Because he refused to bend. Because he remained a free man. This state punishes people for being independent.”[32]Russians, however, saw this act as Putin breaking the oligarchic system for the good of the people. In truth, Putin did not want to break the oligarchic system, but tame it. Khodorkovsky got out of line and, as a result, was imprisoned for it. To make matters worse for Khodorkovsky, Putin froze all of his assets and the state took control of his oil company Yukos, one of the largest and most successful companies in Russia. Other oligarchs took note: if they wanted to keep their wealth and assets, they had to unabashedly follow Putin’s demands.
However, there have been cases where threats of imprisonment were not sufficient enough. Putin’s reputation as a “mafia president” comes less from psychological intimidation but through the killing of oppositional forces. Most famous, was the case of Alexander Litvinenko. Litvinenko, a former FSB officer who fled to England, was one of Putin’s most vocal critics. He was considered the “most prominent and ebullient” of Putin’s critics, as his “denunciations were fierce.”[33]The culmination of his discontent toward Putin came from the publication of his book ‘Blowing Up Russia‘ which claimed that Putin was one of the planners of the 1999 apartment bombings and that Chechnya was falsely blamed.[34]Not pleased by such vocal opposition, Putin approved the assassination of Litvinenko. On November 23, 2006 Alexander Litvinenko died mysteriously from radiation poisoning in London.[35]
Litvinenko, unfortunately, was not the only one to be murdered due to their opposition to Putin. Sergei Yushenkov, a politician who identified as a liberal and who campaigned for a free market economy, democratic reforms, and higher standards of human rights in Russia, was one of Putin’s most persistent and popular objectors. On April 17, 2003, mere hours after registering his political party to participate in the December 2003 parliamentary elections, Yushenkov was shot four times in the chest and died.[36]A few years prior, Anatoly Sobchak, the first democratically elected mayor of St. Petersburg and co-author of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, was a popular critic of the president, going so far as to call him “the new Stalin.”[37]He mysteriously died in a private hotel on February 20, 2000. As recently as 2015 there was the assassination of Boris Nemstov, a liberal politician and outspoken critic of Putin’s, who was shot four times in the back and died on the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge in Moscow. Those brave politicians who were willing to oppose Putin put their life at risk, as Putin is all too willing to kill political opponents.
The only group that are at greater risk of being murdered by Putin then politicians are journalists. Publishing and producing critical material against Putin is an unwritten high crime that could lead the author to the same fate of Alexander Litvinenko. Anna Politkovskaya tragically found this to be the case. Politkovskaya, a human rights activist and writer who authored several books criticizing Putin, was shot in the elevator of her apartment building in 2006. As well, Yuri Shchekochikhin, an investigative journalist who made his name by writing and campaigning against organized crime and corruption in Russia, found the same fate three years prior. In July 2003 he mysteriously and suddenly died in Moscow, with claims (and evidence) that he was poisoned. Finally, there is Marina Litvinovich, a journalist and aid to Putin’s political rival Garry Kasparov, who regularly condemned the president. Leaving her Moscow office in March 2006, Litvinovich was savagely attacked. She was hit several times in the head with a blunt object and was left for dead. After spending several hours in intensive care, Litvinovich miraculously survived. But Putin’s strategy for state terror scared off many opposition journalists who wanted to write against Putin. It was better to play along with Putin then die.[38]
The politicians, journalists, and oligarchs that are discussed here are only some of those who were affected by Putin’s reign, as many more have been influenced in how they operate within their occupation due to the president’s use of state terror. Freedom of speech has effectively been censored unofficially, as the Sword of Damocles lays right above the heads of people of influence. Whether a person is a rich oligarch, opposition political opponent, or a critical journalist, one thing was for certain. If someone wanted to succeed in their field they had to work for Putin. If they opposed the former KGB agent, they risked imprisonment or even death.
Conclusion
When the Soviet Union collapsed in December 1991 there was much optimism in the air. The opportunity for a better, freer Russia was on the horizon. However, these dreams would remain only that, a dream. A decade after the collapse of the Soviet empire, Vladimir Putin became president. Ever since he was granted the presidency by Yeltsin, Putin has done everything possible to keep his power from slipping from his grasp. To do this Putin had to go against the optimistic, democratic ideals that were found in the aftermath of the Soviet collapse. From murdering opponents and imprisoning oligarchs to taking their assets and controlling media enterprises, dismantling any remnants of a democratic state, and going so far to commit tragedies on his people to further his gains, one thing about Putin is clear: he will stop at nothing to keep his control on Russia. Unfortunately, there is no end of the Putin regime in sight. In January 2020, Putin’s liquidation of the Russian Duma and the subsequent resignation of current Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, has left the control of Russia squarely in the hands of Vladimir Putin. By using all of these different strategies to keep power, Putin has undisputed rule over his country, and has successfully became the “neo-Tsar” of Russia.
What do you think of Vladimir Putin? Let us know below.
You can also read Brenden’s past articles on Russian history for the site: Why did the USSR collapse? (here) and Peter the Great’s visit to England (here).
[1]Karen Dawisha, Putin’s Kleptocracy: Who Owns Russia? (Simon & Schuster, 2015), 276.
[2]Masha Gessen, The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin (New York, NY: Riverhead Books, 2014), 26.
[3]David Satter, The Less You Know, The Better You Sleep: Russia’s Road to Terror and Dictatorship Under Yeltsin and Putin (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2017), 8.
[4]Satter, The Less You Know, The Better You Sleep, 9.
[5]Gessen, The Man Without a Face, 42.
[6]Satter, The Less You Know, The Better You Sleep, 19.
[7]Ibid., 8.
[8]Ibid., 19.
[9]Ibid., 20.
[10]Ibid., 20.
[11]Dawisha, Putin’s Kleptocracy, 273.
[12]Ibid., 324.
[13]Gessen, The Man Without a Face, 181.
[14]Ibid., 181.
[15]Ibid., 183-184.
[16]Ibid., 185.
[17]Ibid., 185-186.
[18]Ibid., 184-185.
[19]Ibid., 190.
[20]Ibid., 265.
[21]Dawisha, Putin’s Kleptocracy, 273.
[22]Gessen, The Man Without a Face, 173.
[23]Dawisha, Putin’s Kleptocracy, 289.
[24]Gessen, The Man Without a Face, 174.
[25]Ibid., 161.
[26]Dawisha, Putin’s Kleptocracy, 274.
[27]Ibid., 274.
[28]Gessen, The Man Without a Face, 164.
[29]Ibid., 174.
[30]Ibid., 145.
[31]Ibid., 324.
[32]Ibid., 243.
[33]Robert Owen, The Litvinenko Inquiry: Report into the death of Alexander Litvinenko, House of Commons, 2016, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/493860/The-Litvinenko-Inquiry-H-C-695-web.pdf, 56.
[34]Ibid., 57.
[35]Ibid., 244.
[36]Gessen, The Man Without a Face, 129.
[37]Ibid.,142.
[38]Ibid.,218-226.
Bibliography
Dawisha, Karen. Putin’s Kleptocracy: Who Owns Russia? Simon & Schuster, 2015.
Gessen, Masha. The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin. New York, NY: Riverhead Books, 2014.
Owen, Robert. The Litvinenko Inquiry: Report into the death of Alexander Litvinenko, January 2016,
Presented to Parliament pursuant to Section 26 of the Inquiries Act 2005. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed on 21 January 2016. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/493860/The-Litvinenko-Inquiry-H-C-695-web.pdf
Satter, David. The Less You Know, The Better You Sleep: Russia’s Road to Terror and Dictatorship Under Yeltsin and Putting. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2017.
