President Vladimir Putin inherited a political mare’s nest from his predecessor Boris Yeltsin. His country had become dominated by ruthless mafias large and small, which had seized control of parts of the state apparatus as well as leading Russian companies and banks. It was widely predicted that the uncharismatic former spy would soon fall prey to one powerful faction or another and become a mere cipher.
In the event, Vladimir Putin has turned out to be far from a cipher. His KGB-training has taught him to take the long view. He has approached his job with a series of carefully planned little moves, none of which, by itself, would be likely to alarm his political enemies, but all of which taken as a whole, may yet prove their undoing.
Essentially, Putin has been bringing power back to Moscow. In the confusion that followed the break up of the Soviet Union, many parts of the remaining rump, now called the Russian Federation, sought to go their own way too. The most spectacular and tragic of these moves to independence has been in Chechnya. But other regions also saw an opportunity. Vladivostok in the far east of Russia became for a while a virtually independent fief, with lesser fiefdoms such as that in the huge Sakhalin Peninsula, springing up around it. Moscow could issue whatever instructions it wished, but local officials could and did block whatever did not suit them.
Putin’s response has been to chip away at this new-found spirit of independence. He has appointed presidential envoys to each of the seven federal districts, all of them capable administrators and of unquestioning personal loyalty to Putin. Gradually, these viceroys of the Kremlin have accumulated more and more responsibility — the latest being the tighter coordination of the justice system and law enforcement. At the same time, the powers of the federal ministries have been eroded as more and more responsibilities are effectively returned to the Kremlin. The leaders of local legislative assemblies are being gathered into district-level councils, which are in direct touch with Moscow. Local political bigwigs are thus being offered the carrot of close connections with the Kremlin. There is, however, no big stick, as in the old Communist days, when the greatest fear was of a knock on the door in the middle of the night. But perhaps Putin’s KGB background still carries enough weight to convince doubters that they should fall in line.
Historians would say that the return of Moscow’s domination means that Russia is reverting to the system which has always served it best. There is, however, a danger in the reimposition of centralization. In Putin’s hands, the Russian Federation, with the notable exception of Chechnya, may be acquiring the necessary political stability to press on with the key job of economic reform and the fostering of free markets. The paradox is that an overdominant Kremlin will very probably ultimately stifle the reforms that only it can bring about. Of more concern must be the fact that some future Russian president with dangerous nationalist or Marxist policies, will find Vladimir Putin has left many of the old levers of Stalinist central control ready and waiting for him.
