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Putinism (The Putin regime) is a term used by some political analysts and commentators, normally outside Russia and often with a pejorative connotation, to describe the political system of a Russia under President (2000-2008) and, subsequently, Prime-Minister Vladimir Putin, where much of political and financial powers are controlled by siloviki, i.e. people with state security background, coming from the total of 22 governmental security and intelligence agencies, such as FSB, Police, Army. Many of these people share their career background with Putin, or, are his personal friends. (See also Political groups during Vladimir Putin's presidency)

Thus, the system is primarily characterized by lack of transparency in governance, cronyism and pervasive corruption, which assumed in Putin's Russia "a systemic and institutionalized form", according to a report by Boris Nemtsov as well as other sources.

In foreign affairs, the regime sought to emulate the former USSR's grandeur, belligerence and expansionism.

The political regime under Putin is often described as mild authoritarianism falling far short of the excesses of Stalinism. The Russian Marxist dissident and sociologist Boris Kagarlitsky described Russia under both Yeltsin and Putin as a neoliberal autocracy in thrall to global capitalism.

What is Putinism?

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

KGB/FSB influence

According to some scholars, Russia under Putin had been transformed into the "FSB state" . Putin himself admitted that "there is no such thing as a former KGB man" and that "a group of FSB colleagues dispatched to work undercover in the government has successfully completed its first mission."

Russian sociologist Olga Kryshtanovskaya believed in August 2004 that there had been no seizure of power, but rather siloviki were called into service by Russian elites, their rise into power starting from about 1996.

Former Securitate general, defector and CIA contingent cooperator Ion Mihai Pacepa speculates in interview for conservative FrontPage Magazine that "former KGB officers are running" Russia, and that FSB, which he calls "the KGB successor" has the right to monitor the population electronically , control political process, search private property, cooperate with employees of the federal government, create front enterprises, investigate cases, and run its own prisons.

Various 2006 estimates show that Russia has above 200,000 members of FSB, or one FSB employee for every 700 citizens of Russia (exact number of FSB staff is a state secret of Russian Federation). 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, although FSB might be interested in monitoring these structures, as they intrinsically involve state secrets and various degrees of admittance to them. 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.

"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.

The Russian historian Yuri Felshtinsky compared the takeover of the Russian state by the siloviki to an imaginary scenario of the Gestapo coming to power in Germany after World War II. He pointed out 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 are wont to employ the so called active measures and Extra-judicial killings. Hence, they killed Alexander Litvinenko and directed Russian apartment bombings and other terrorism acts in Russia to frighten the civilian population and achieve their political objectives, according to Felstinsky.

Former KGB officer Konstantin Preobrazhenskiy expressed 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."

"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.

One of the leading members of Putin's ruling elite, Nikolai Patrushev, Director of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (August 1999 - May 2008) and, subsequently, Secretary of the Security Council of Russia, was known for his propagating the idea of Chekists as "neo-aristocrats" (Template:Lang-ru).

Sociological data

Sociological research, unveiling the phenomenon, was done in 2004 by Olga Kryshtanovskaya, who put the relative number of siloviki in the Russian political elite at 25%. 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. According to Kryshtanovskaya, there was no capture of power as Kremlin bureaucracy 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."

Kryshtanovskaya 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." Summing up numbers of official and "affiliated" siloviks she got an estimate of 77% of such in the power.

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)"

At the end of 2008, Lev Gudkov, based on the Levada Center polling data, pointed out the near-disappearance of public opinion as a socio-political institution in Putin's Russia and its replacement with the still-efficacious state propaganda.

Corporation-state

Some economists consider the political system in Russia under Putin a variety of corporatism. According to Andrei Illarionov, advisor of Vladimir Putin until 2005, this is a new socio-political order, "distinct from any seen in our country before": members of the Corporation of Intelligence Service Collaborators had taken over the entire body of state power, followed an omerta-like behavior code, and were "given instruments conferring power upon 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 members. Through those agencies, every significant resource in the country – security/intelligence, political, economic, informational and financial – is being monopolized in the hands of Corporation members"

Members of the Corporation formed 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 .

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."

The Financial Times on 20th September, 2008, when the global financial crisis had started to hit the well-being of top Russian tycoons, said: "Putinism was built on the understanding that if tycoons played by Kremlin rules they would prosper."

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"

Russia's nascent middle class showed few signs of political activism under the regime, as Masha Lipman reported: "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."

In December 2007, the Russian sociologist Igor Eidman (VCIOM) categorized the Putin regime as "the power of bureaucratic oligarchy" which had "the traits of extreme right-wing dictatorship — the dominance of state-monopoly capital in the economy, silovoki structures in governance, clericalism and statism in ideology".

Cronyism and corruption

Political analyst Andrei Piontkovsky considered Putinism to be "the highest and culminating stage of bandit capitalism in Russia”. He believed: "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."

Such views were shared by politologist Julie Anderson who said the same person can be a Russian intelligence officer, an organized criminal, and a businessman , who quoted the former CIA Director James Woolsey as saying: "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."

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.

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).

According to the estimates published in "Putin and Gazprom" by Boris Nemtsov and Vladimir Milov, Putin and his friends pilfered assets of $80 billion from Gazprom during his second term as president.

Restoring functionality of government

The concept of "Putinism" was described in a positive sense by Russian historian Andranik Migranyan. According to Migranyan, Putin came into office when the economy was "totally decentralized", and "the state had lost central authority, while the oligarchs robbed the country and controlled its power institutions." 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, which, according to Migranyan, in turn undercut the positions of the actors, such as Boris Berezovsky and Vladimir Gusinsky, who had sought to privatize the Russian state "with all of its resources and institutions".

Migranyan sees enhancement of the role of the law enforcement agencies as an attempt to set barriers against criminals, "particularly those in big business".

He asserts, "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 sees modern Russia as democracy, at least formally: "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."

The major drawback of the Russian democracy, according to Migranyan, is inability of the 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".

A similar opinion was expressed by the major Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn in 2007 interview to Der Spiegel: "Putin has inherited plundered and downtrodden country with demoralized and grown poor majority of the population. And he took on its possible — to be noted, gradual, slow — recovering."

Rehabilitation of the Soviet past and patriotism

In April, 2005, in his formal address to Russia's Parliament, Putin famously said:

Above all, we should acknowledge that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century. As for the Russian nation, it became a genuine drama. Tens of millions of our co-citizens and compatriots found themselves outside Russian territory. Moreover, the epidemic of disintegration infected Russia itself.

In September 2003, Putin was quoted as saying, "The Soviet Union is a very complicated page in the history of our peoples. It was heroic and constructive, and it was also tragic. But it is a page that has been turned. It’s over, the boat has sailed. Now we need to think about the present and the future of our peoples."

In February 2004, he expressed this view: "It is my deep conviction that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a national tragedy on a massive scale. I think the ordinary citizens of the former Soviet Union and the citizens in the post-Soviet space, the CIS countries, have gained nothing from it. On the contrary, people have been faced with a host of problems." He went on to say, "Incidentally, at that period, too, opinions varied, including among the leaders of the Union republics. For example, Nursultan Nazarbayev was categorically opposed to the dissolution of the Soviet Union and he said so openly proposing various formulas for preserving the state within the common borders. But, I repeat, all that is in the past. Today we should look at the situation in which we live. One cannot keep looking back and fretting about it: we should look forward."

In December 2007, he said in the interview to the Time magazine: "Russia is an ancient country with historical, profound traditions and a very powerful moral foundation. And this foundation is a love for the Motherland and patriotism. Patriotism in the best sense of that word. Incidentally, I think that to a certain extent, to a significant extent, this is also attributable to the American people."

In November, 2008, International Herald Tribune stated:

"The Kremlin in the Putin era has often sought to maintain as much sway over the portrayal of history as over the governance of the country. In seeking to restore Russia's standing, Putin and other officials have stoked a nationalism that glorifies Soviet triumphs while playing down or even whitewashing the system's horrors. As a result, throughout Russia, many archives detailing killings, persecution and other such acts committed by the Soviet authorities have become increasingly off-limits. The role of the security services seems especially delicate, perhaps because Putin is a former KGB agent who headed the agency's successor, the FSB, in the late 1990s."

State-sponsored global PR effort

Shortly after the Beslan terror act in September 2004, Putin enhanced the Kremlin-sponsored program aimed at "improving Russia's image" abroad; according to an unnamed former Duma deputy, there existed a classified article in the RF federal budget that provided for financing measures to this purpose.

One of the major projects of the program was the creation in 2005 of Russia Today - a rolling English-language TV news channel providing 24 hour news coverage, modeled on CNN. Towards its start-up budget, $30 million of public funds were allocated. A CBS News story on the launch of Russia Today quoted Boris Kagarlitsky as saying it was "very much a continuation of the old Soviet propaganda services". In 2007, Russia Today employed nearly 100 English-speaking special correspondents worldwide.

Russia's deputy foreign minister Grigory Karasin said in August 2008, in the context of the Russia-Georgia conflict: "Western media is a well-organized machine, which is showing only those pictures that fit in well with their thoughts. We find it very difficult to squeeze our opinion into the pages of their newspapers."

William Dunbar, who was reporting then for Russia Today from Georgia, said he had not been on air since he mentioned Russian bombing of targets inside Georgia on 9th August 2008, and had to resign over what he claimed was biased coverage by the outlet.

Variety magazine quoted an unnamed "senior journalist" with Russia Today as saying: "My view is that Russia Today is not particularly biased at all. When you look at the Western media, there is a lot of genuflection towards the powers that be. Russian news coverage is largely pro-Russia, but that is to be expected."

Notional transfer of presidential power (2008)

Most commentators, analysts and politicians concurred in 2008 and early 2009, that the transfer of presidential powers that took place in May 2008, was in name only and Putin continued to retain the number one position in Russia's effective power hierarchy, with Dmitry Medvedev being "Russia’s notional president". At the end of 2008, Nezavisimaya gazeta pointed out this novelty in Russia's political life: the president is in no position to criticize the premier, the government, or ministers; the Duma, in turn, is in no position to criticize its leader's cabinet.

Notably, in early January 2009, the BBC report on the ongoing Russia–Ukraine gas dispute referred, apparently mistakenly, to prime-minister Vladimir Putin as "Russian President". Within the same context, Nikolai Petrov, an analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center said: "What we see right now is the dominant role of Putin. We see him as a real head of state <…> This is not surprising. We are still living in Putin's Russia."

Ideology

Some observers try to identify an ideology of Russia's political elite under Putin.

Political scientist Irina Pavlova said that chekists were not merely a corporation of people united to expropriate financial assets; they had long-standing political objectives of transforming Moscow to the Third Rome and an ideology of "containing" the United States. Columnist George Will emphasized in 2003 the nationalistic nature of Putinism: "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 <…>". According to Illarionov, the ideology of chekists is Nashism (“ours-ism”), the selective application of rights".

According to Dmitri Trenin (2004), Head of the Moscow Carnegie Center, the then Russia was one of the least ideological countries around the world: "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 described Russia's elite involved in the process of policy-making as people who largely owned the country. Most of them were not public politicians, but the majority were 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 called Russian-Western relations, from Moscow’s perspective, "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."

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."

The Russian political scientist Gleb Pavlovsky believed (October 2007) that "Putin builds the world's Russia" as opposed to a nation state such as Alexander Lukashenko's Belarus. According to Pavlovsky, Russia's power had to be a model one, i.e. the power that would offer itself to others as a kind of a model to emulate (the USA being one such example).

Russian Communists' view

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In November 2008, Gennady Zyuganov, leader of the Communist Party of Russian Federation (the largest opposition group within Russia with its 13% of seats in the national Parliament) in his speech before the 13th Party Congress made these remarks on the system established in Russia under Putin:

"To act effectively and confidently the Party must understand in what situation it exists and works. What are the historical perspectives of our movement? What are the key internal and external factors to be borne in mind?

First. The state-controlled media and the United Russia, together with their underlings in the Duma, keep saying that the regime is solid and has a brilliant future. They are drumming it into people’s heads that the Russian state has left the dire crisis behind it and that we are entering an era of resurgent Russian power under the leadership of Medvedev and Putin. There are many people in the country who want and are ready to believe it because they are tired of two decades of degradation, hopelessness and national humilitation. The people are longing for a return to justice, order and normal life and respond credulously to the Kremlin’s promises and handouts.

Second. Objectively, Russia’s position remains complicated, not to say dismal. The population is dying out. Thanks to the “heroic efforts” of the Yeltsinites the country has lost 5 out of the 22 million square kilometers of its historical territory. Russia has lost half of its production capacity and has yet to reach the 1990 level of output. Our country is facing three mortal dangers: de-industrialization, de-population and mental debilitation.

The ruling group has neither notable successes to boast of nor a clear plan of action. All its activities are geared to a single goal: to stay in power at all costs. Until recently it has been able to keep in power due to the “windfall” high world prices for energy. Its social support rests on the notorious “vertical power structure” which is another way of saying intimidation and blackmail of the broad social strata and the handouts that power chips off the oil and gas pie and throws out to the population in crumbs, especially on the eve of elections.

Third. The capitalist paradise our people were promised back in 1991 has remained a mirage. It is crumbling before our eyes. Instead of a paradise the people have to support 100 dollar billionaires and 200,000 millionaires. Meanwhile a severe financial and production crisis has set in. That accounts for the natural and tangible interest in past Soviet experience and the ideas of social justice. The present administration, under the pressure of public sentiments, increasingly has to adopt left-wing patriotic rhetoric.

All this prompts a very important conclusion: we are on the threshold of major social-political shifts and changes both in the world and in our country. This requires from us new approaches, new ideas and a new quality of work."

Prognosis and aftermath

In mid-December, 2008, Andrey Piontkovsky believed that due to the farcical nature of Putinism, lack of any underpinning ideological project, its exceedingly narrow social base, the dismantling thereof may well occur without much pain; the first psychological step in this direction being the destruction of Putin's mythical image of Russia's "national leader". In late December, 2008, former Presidential aide Georgy Satarov said that, considering the crisis, the country was moving from the Putin era to a new phase - the collapse of the system.

In late December, 2008, The Moscow Times stated: "Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's reputation as a Teflon leader is showing scratches as some Russians start to see a growing disconnect between the realities of the financial crisis and Putin's public posture as the nation's savior. Posters openly insulting Putin were among those waved at a rally of thousands of motorists against a hike in import duties for used cars in Vladivostok for the past two weekends. Earlier, only radical members from the banned National Bolshevik Party had dared to attack Putin in public." The newspaper also noted that Russia's political commentators who had earlier refrained from criticizing Putin were now openly attacking him in Russian print, radio and online media. The latter fact was interpreted by political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin as an indication of a ongoing cracking in the consensus of the elite.

On December 28, 2008, Catherine Belton of The Financial Times observed that the problems with Russia's economy, which had thitherto been largely fueled by the rising oil price, appeared to be denting the air of invincibility that Putin had taken on since 2000.

See also

• Sovereign democracy
• Yeltsinism
• Corporatism
• Chekism

References

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61. Annual Address to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation
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64. Interview with Time Magazine
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Further reading

• Edward Lucas The New Cold War: Putin's Russia and the Threat to the West , Palgrave Macmillan (February 19, 2008), ISBN 0230606121.
• 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 Template:Ru icon/Template:En icon
• Living Larger in the New Russia, by Gregory L. White, November 3, 2007
• Judy Shelton (2008-09-03). "The Market Will Punish Putinism". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2008-09-09.

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