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The Russian Siloviki& Political Change The Russian Siloviki & Political Change Brian D. Taylor Abstract: The siloviki–Russian security and military personnel–are a key part of Team Putin. They are not, however, a coherent group, and there are important organizational and factional cleavages among the siloviki. Compared with some security and military forces around the world, Russian military and securi- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/146/2/53/1830919/daed_a_00434.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 ty forces generally lack the attributes that would make them a proactive and cohesive actor in bringing about fundamental political change in Russia. In the face of potential revolutionary change, most Russian mili- tary and security bodies do not have the cohesion or the will to defend the regime with significant violence. Russian siloviki are a conservative force supportive of the status quo. Future efforts by the siloviki to main- tain the stability of the existing political order are most likely to be reactive, divided, and behind the scenes. The Russian elite under Vladimir Putin, accord- ing to conventional wisdom, are dominated by men in uniform. The Russian sociologist Olga Kryshta- novskaya was one of the first experts to make this claim, dubbing Putin’s regime a “militocracy” dom- inated by people with backgrounds in the secret police, the military, and law enforcement organs: the siloviki. Average Russians agree; in polls they have consistently stated that, most of all, Putin represents the interests of the siloviki. A related ap- proach, although partially at odds with the militoc- racy scheme, contends that Putin’s Russia is a “neo- kgb state,” maintaining that the kgb evolved from being “a state within the state” in the Soviet Union to “the state itself” under Putin. Thus, in this narrow- er conception, it is not just any man in uniform, but only chekisty (from the name of the early Soviet secret BRIAN D. TAYLOR is Professor of police, the Cheka) who run Putin’s Russia.1 Political Science in the Maxwell If Russia is a militocracy or a neo-kgb state, it logi- School at Syracuse University. He cally stands to reason that siloviki or chekisty will likely is the author of State Building in Pu- tin’s Russia: Policing and Coercion after play an equally prominent role in a post-Putin polit- Communism (2011) and Politics and ical system. A powerful faction within the elite, with the Russian Army: Civil-Military Rela- special access to both power (guns) and knowledge tions, 1689–2000 (2003). (state intelligence), the siloviki are well positioned to © 2017 by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences doi:10.1162/DAED_ a_00434 53 The maintain their position. For example, po- an autonomous force. Future siloviki behav- Russian litical analyst Kimberly Marten has argued ior in high politics will above all be cautious Siloviki & Political that even if Putin is no longer in charge, the and conservative. The siloviki are unlikely Change system is unlikely to change, because of the to be at the forefront of a radical political dominance of “kgb/fsb [Federal Security shift in Russia. Service] networks,” that can use their con- trol over secret information and financial Russia’s “force structures” (silovye struk- assets to squash any potential rival.2 tury) are the state’s military, security, and This essay challenges this view of the law enforcement bodies. Siloviki, then, are likely trajectory of future political change those who work or worked for one of the in Russia. In particular, I explore what role force structures, or “power ministries.” It Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/146/2/53/1830919/daed_a_00434.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 the siloviki might play in fundamental politi- was simpler in Soviet times, because there cal change in Russia over the next ten years, were three main agencies: the Ministry of arguing that their ability to dictate the fu- Defense; the Ministry of Internal Affairs ture direction of Russia is by no means as- (mvd), which controlled the police; and sured. To the extent that representatives the kgb (Committee on State Security). Af- of the siloviki play a role in political change ter the Soviet collapse, the number of pow- over the next decade, whether of a consti- er ministries proliferated as part of a delib- tutional or extraconstitutional variety, they erate strategy by President Boris Yeltsin to are likely to be reactive rather than proac- divide state coercive resources, in partic- tive and divided rather than unified. Mar- ular the powerful kgb that in August 1991 ten is correct that chekisty are likely to sup- played the lead role in organizing the at- port the continuation of the status quo, but tempted hardliner coup against Soviet lead- neither the siloviki in general nor the chekisty er Mikhail Gorbachev. Although Putin has in particular are a coherent or unified team. partially reversed this fragmentation, giving The siloviki are internally divided along both the fsb restored power in some areas, he did organizational (formal) and so-called clan not return Russia to its tripartite structure (informal) lines. Furthermore, the Russian from the mature Soviet system. Indeed, at siloviki do not possess the organizational or times he has furthered this dispersal of pow- ideological characteristics that often lead er, most recently in 2016 when he created a men in uniform to decisive action in other powerful National Guard of over two hun- parts of the world. dred thousand armed personnel under the I draw on both comparative politics re- direct control of his longtime associate and search on similar regimes around the world former bodyguard Viktor Zolotov.3 and examples from Soviet and Russian his- It would be a big mistake, however, to tory in this attempt to forecast the future assume that all siloviki share common in- role of the siloviki. Lessons from other coun- terests and ideas. Indeed, the interests of tries suggest that the role of coercive force these different organizations are often is often decisive at times of fundamental more in competition than in harmony. At political change, but only highly cohesive a general level, this is Bureaucratic Politics armed groups tend to be successful in gain- 101: organizations with similar and over- ing and holding power. The Russian siloviki lapping missions often compete for power do not fit this model. Furthermore, the les- and resources. For example, multiple Rus- sons of Russian history suggest that even sian law enforcement and security agen- when force-wielding structures do play an cies–including the fsb, the mvd, and the important role, it is most often at the be- Investigative Committee–have jurisdic- hest of other political elites, rather than as tion over economic crimes, an important 54 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (and potentially lucrative) realm of activ- bureaucracy, but also inhabit a set of in- Brian D. ity in Russia’s rough-and-tumble capital- formal networks that cross administrative Taylor ism. Russia’s power ministries also have barriers and the public-private divide. In- deep legacies of conflict from the Soviet formal clans matter as much as formal po- past, related to issues such as kgb mon- sitions and titles. The importance of clans itoring of the military from the inside, or and informal networks is, of course, not the privileged status of chekisty compared confined tosiloviki and power ministry of- with average cops. Putin could not eliminate ficials; it is true of economic and political these rivalries even if he wanted to, and elites at both the local and national level. the presence of competing power minis- This is part of “how Russia really works.”5 tries arguably strengthens his position and Unfortunately, when it comes to enu- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/146/2/53/1830919/daed_a_00434.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 provides him with more reliable informa- merating the important clans, this funda- tion on their activities. mental insight into Russian politics–that Russian siloviki, although generally pos- informal clans matter as much as formal sessing a conservative worldview, also do position–often coexists with a simplistic not represent an ideological monolith. It reductionism. In particular, it is often as- is generally believed that siloviki tend to be sumed that there is a single, unifiedsiloviki statist and illiberal, favoring a hard line at clan encompassing all of the siloviki offi- home and a confrontational foreign poli- cials with top positions in Russian politics. cy abroad. As one former kgb general put However, there has never been a unifiedsi - it, chekisty “are patriots and proponents of loviki clan. Instead, there are multiple and a strong state” committed to “the resurrec- competing siloviki clans, with connections tion of our Great Power.” This characteri- that cut across formal boundaries. The bat- zation of chekist values does reflect many of tles for influence between these different the views of Putin and other chekisty from clans are often intense.6 within his inner circle. As two of Russia’s Further, these clan and organizational leading authorities on the fsb put it, “If the battles are about not just power but also fsb has an ideology, it is the goal of stability money. Siloviki politics have been punc- and order.” According to a 2008 sociologi- tuated in the Putin era by periodic flare- cal study of Russian elites, the siloviki were ups around commercial ventures, and the among the most status quo–oriented elite ability of law enforcement agencies to ex- groups. At the same time, it would be a mis- ploit their authority for their own ends. take to presume ideological homogeneity, There have been scandals around furni- especially across the different agencies, giv- ture smuggling, underground casinos, en the different organizational cultures of and money laundering.
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