The Penguin History of Modern Russia

Certainly there were several influential members of his entourage who had always disliked aspects of the reform project.

The movement towards a more authoritarian political style accelerated in August 1999 when Yeltsin replaced Sergei Stepashin with Vladimir Putin as Prime Minister. At first the change in personnel did not seem to matter. Both Stepashin and Putin had backgrounds in the security agencies. Furthermore, Putin was obliged to behave as obsequiously to the President in public as every Prime Minister since Chernomyrdin. Continuity in policy and practice appeared the likely outcome.

Putin came to office with an agenda for the north Caucasus. Already Stepashin had secretly been planning a second invasion of Chechnya. In September there were bomb explosions in Moscow apartment blocks which were blamed on Chechen terrorists. The circumstantial evidence pointed away from Chechens and towards a provocation by the Federal Security Service, and the explanations offered by Bureau director Nikolai Patrushev were derisorily implausible. Nevertheless they were believed at the time by most Russians. The authorities had the pretext it needed, and Putin, in consultation with Yeltsin, ordered the Russian Army into Chechnya. Lessons had been learned from the 1994–1996 campaign. This time the government closely controlled news reporting. Firepower was maximized and, as Russian armed forces approached Grozny, warnings were given for civilians to evacuate the city. Piloting his own plane, Putin went down to visit troops near the front line. His popularity soared as total military victory appeared in sight. Yeltsin was already treating him as his heir. And then, on 31 December 1999, the entire county was taken by surprise when the President in a dignified address announced his retirement.²³ Putin was to become Acting President with immediate effect. The Yeltsin cavalcade was over.

28 And Russia? (From 2000)

Vladimir Putin achieved an impressive victory in the presidential election of March 2000. He had left nothing to chance against challengers who matched his zeal to promote Russian state interests and national pride. Yuri Luzhkov, the mayor of Moscow, let it be known he was ready to stand on behalf of the Fatherland party. Immediately the government-controlled TV stations released charges about his political and personal integrity. Then Yevgeni Primakov offered a further threat after bringing together the Fatherland and All Russia parties and announcing his candidacy for the presidency. Yet again Russian television stations conducted an operation against the challenger, and Primakov too decided to withdraw his candidacy. This left Zyuganov and Zhirinovski to put forward their standard hopeless case. Opinion polls universally predicted an electoral landslide and Putin made a virtue of refusing to campaign. His nonchalance was counterfeit currency at a time when his subordinates were working hard at conveying his image of cherubic militancy in the news bulletins and suppressing any untoward reports from the Chechnya front. A flattering biography was prepared and rushed into print. Youthfulness, sobriety, competence, persistence, patriotism: these were the qualities which commended themselves to voters. No second round of voting was required. Putin had already won the election in the first round, receiving fifty-three per cent of all votes cast.

Yeltsin and Patriarch Aleksi II gave their blessing at the Kremlin inauguration ceremony. Down the aisle of the St Andrew’s Hall walked Putin like a hunter eyeing the trees on either side of him for quarry. His address to the audience, televised live, indicated a determination to set a new tone in public life. He spoke about democracy and the rule of law. But much more insistent was his emphasis on state power and institutional order. Compliance with higher authority was going to be demanded. Russia’s place in the world would be asserted. Putin was combative in appearance and mode of delivery. He had not needed to go cap in hand to wealthy businessmen to get himself elected. Diminutive in stature, he towered over the proceedings and restored dignity to his office.

Putin was proud of being the product of a Soviet upbringing. He described the dismantling of the USSR as ‘the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century’; he hated the blizzard-like deprecation of the USSR’s achievements. Born in Leningrad in 1952, he had a father who had fought in the Second World War and a grandfather who had cooked for Lenin. As an adolescent he became a judo champion in his native city. He also applied for recruitment to the KGB, but was told that the KGB expected to approach individuals, not to be approached by them. But his enthusiasm was noted and while he was studying at Leningrad State University he was promised a posting. His main early job was as an intelligence officer in the German Democratic Republic. Operating there during the years of Gorbachev’s rule, he was filled with dismay. For Putin, perestroika’s principal effect was to dissolve a great state, economy and society. But he was also pragmatic and on returning to Leningrad joined the administrative team of mayor Anatoli Sobchak who was seeking to make political and economic reforms work well for the city. Putin was skilled at adapting to circumstances. His organizational talent attracted attention and in 1996 he was promoted to the Presidential Administration in the capital. Soon he was appointed head of the Federal Security Service, and in August 1999 this man whose name was barely known to most Russian citizens became their Prime Minister.¹

The ‘oligarch’ Berezovski had boasted to the press that it was he who had put Putin in power. He thought that his commercial interests would be protected in return. He could not have been more wrong. Soon after assuming the presidency Putin called the business elite into the Kremlin and issued a direct warning. Unlike Yeltsin, he would not tolerate their interference in politics. Most of the audience took him seriously but a few individuals chanced their luck. When Berezovski continued to brag and bluster it was made plain to him that his days of pomp were over. Police investigations were started into his alleged frauds. He fled to the United Kingdom in 2001 where he received political asylum and, wrapping himself in a coat of democratic principles and clean capitalism, publicized his accusations against Putin. Next to feel Putin’s wrath was Vladimir Gusinski. He too had multiple interests in the economy. And he had political ambitions: his NTV television channel regularly poked fun at Putin through the Kukly satirical puppet show.² But his business career had had its murky side and a police investigation was started. Gusinski was briefly arrested. He too fled the country in summer 2001, finding refuge in Israel and Spain.

Putin urged that the achievements of Russia after the October 1917 Revolution should be given their due; and he re-introduced the melody — if not the words — of the USSR state hymn.³ Most Russians welcomed the restoration of a stirring piece of music they associated with victory in the Second World War. They wanted to be proud again about being Russian; and surveys revealed that the proportion of citizens feeling associated more with the USSR than with Russia was going down only slowly.⁴ The popular response was favourable. His opinion-poll rating fell drastically only once. This was when he reacted stiffly to an explosion in the nuclear submarine Kursk in August 2000. All on board perished. Putin was widely criticized for declining to interrupt his holiday and display personal sympathy. He learned from this setback and tried to avoid falling out of step with national sensibilities. He was tested again in September 2004 when Chechen terrorists occupied a school in Beslan, a town in North Osetiya, and took captive a thousand tiny pupils, their minders and their teachers.⁵ Putin was televised supervising the handling of the siege until Russian security forces re-took the buildings. Although the operation was accompanied by many deaths it was not the Russian president who incurred the blame.

He consolidated his position by filling the offices of state with individuals who had ties to the Federal Security Service or other coercive agencies. They ruthlessly enforced governmental decrees. State power was their shibboleth. It is true that newspapers, books and posters continued to criticize or ridicule him. Yet television was the medium with the deepest popular impact, and the humbling of Berezovski and Gusinski had the effect desired by the Kremlin as TV programme editors exercised caution in what they transmitted about the central authorities.

The president was not an enemy of the big business corporations, only of businessmen who got politically too big for their boots. All the remaining ‘oligarchs’ understood this except the hot-blooded Mikhail Khodorkovski who continued to finance political parties and liberal causes hostile to Putin. As one of the wealthiest men on the planet and owner of the oil company Yukos, Khodorkovski had got used to doing things his own way. He declared his wish to encourage a more pluralist form of politics and a less corrupt environment for commerce in Russia. His newspapers regularly criticized the presidential administration and the government; he also subsidized opposition parties in the Duma. When he refused to desist he was put under investigation for fraud. Prosecutors brought him to court and charged him with tax evasion. A huge bill was delivered to the company. Facing bankruptcy,