Putin: Russia's Choice, Second Edition

Putin The second edition of this extremely well-received political biography of Vladimir Putin builds on the strengths of the previous edition to provide the most detailed and nuanced account of the man, his politics and his pro- found influence on Russian politics, foreign policy and society. New to this edition: Analysis of Putin’s second term as President. More biographical information in the light of recent research. Detailed discussion of changes to the policy process and the elites around Putin. Developments in state–society relations including the conflicts with oligarchs such as Khodorkovsky. Review of changes affecting the party system and electoral legislation, including the development of federalism in Russia. Details on economic performance under Putin, including more discussion of the energy sector and pipeline politics. Russia’s relationship with Nato after the ‘big-bang’ enlargement, EU– Russian relations after enlargement and Russia’s relations with other post- Soviet states. The conclusion brings us up to date with debates over the question of democracy in Russia today, and the nature of Putin’s leadership and his place in the world. Putin: Russia’s choice is essential reading for all scholars and students of Russian politics. Richard Sakwa is Professor of Politics at the University of Kent, UK. Putin Russia’s choice Second edition Richard Sakwa First edition published 2004 Second edition, 2008 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business # 2008 Richard Sakwa All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Sakwa, Richard. Putin: Russia’s choice / Richard Sakwa. – 2nd ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Russia (Federation) – Politics and government – 1991 – 2. Putin, Vladimir Vladimirovich, 1952–I. Title. DK510.763.S247 2007 947.086092–dc22 [B] 2007008402 ISBN 0-203-93193-9 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 978-0-415-40765-6 (hbk) ISBN 978-0-415-40766-3 (pbk) ISBN 978-0-203-93193-6 (ebk) Contents List of tables vii Preface to the second edition viii Acknowledgements xii 1 The path to power 1 The unlikely making of a leader 2 Operation successor 17 2 Ideas and choices 37 Who is Mister Putin? 37 Normality, normalcy and normalisation 42 Russia at the turn of the millennium 52 Planning for the future 56 The ‘state of the nation’ speeches 59 3 Putin’s path 70 Building the Putin bloc 71 Putin and the people 83 Leadership and style 90 National democracy and Russia’s ‘third way’ 95 4 Parties, elections and the succession 101 Development of the party system 101 Elections and electoral legislation 109 Parliamentary realignment 123 Putin, parties and government 127 The Putin succession 129 5 Regime, state and society 135 State and regime 136 The ‘liquidation of the oligarchs as a class’ 143 Freedom of speech and the media 150 Judicial reform and human rights 155 vi Contents 6 Bureaucracy, incorporation and opposition 162 Bureaucracy and corruption 162 Civil society and para-constitutional representation 167 Regime and opposition 175 7 Putin’s ‘new federalism’ 186 Segmented regionalism 186 Features of the ‘new federalism’ 192 State reconstitution and federalism 209 8 Reforging the nation 214 National images and state symbols 214 Social aspects of national identity 223 Chechnya: tombstone or crucible of Russian power? 227 9 Russian capitalism 240 Entering the market 240 Models of capitalism – state corporatism? 249 State, economy and society 259 10 Putin’s new realism in foreign policy 267 Towards a new realism 268 Features of the new realism 274 The new realism in practice 279 11 Conclusion: the power of contradiction 299 Public politics 300 Beyond transition 306 The power of contradiction 310 Appendix: Russia at the turn of the millennium 317 Notes 329 Select bibliography 370 Index 376 Tables 1.1 State Duma election 19 December 1999 25 1.2 Presidential election 26 March 2000 32 4.1 State Duma election 7 December 2003 111 4.2 Presidential election 14 March 2004 116 9.1 Economic indicators 1996–2006 244 9.2 Russia’s ‘oligarchs’ 252 Preface to the second edition The coming to power of Vladimir Putin at the beginning of the new millennium signalled the onset of yet another period of rapid change. This was not the first time that a new century marked a turning point in Russian development. In 1703 Peter the Great began building St Petersburg and thus signalled the aspiration to modernise the country ‘from above’ along Western lines. His attempt, as Lenin put it, ‘to chase out barbarism by barbaric means’ by establishing the city on the Neva, established a pattern of accelerated modernisation that has been repeated periodically ever since. While modernisation from above provides a mechanism to kick-start development, it tends to foster bureaucratic authoritarianism and inhibit the growth of inclusive government and popular accountability. Putin is a native son of Peter’s city, and Russia’s first emperor is in many ways a model to him. As under Peter, a distinctive pattern of modernisation without modernity has once again emerged. A type of superficial Westernisation in form is created without the critical spirit, pluralism and political diversity that distinguishes Western modernity at its best. In the early nineteenth century Alexander I brought Russia to the front ranks of the European powers, defeating Napoleon’s Grand Army in 1812 and then, following the Congress of Vienna in 1815, made it part of the Holy Alliance of conservative powers. Various plans for constitutional reform, and debates over how best to Europeanise the country, ended in the defeat of the Decembrist uprising in 1825. The choice thereafter, with exceptions, was to try to modernise within the framework of autocratic government, a combination that collapsed early in the twentieth century. Russia at that time struggled to define its developmental path, torn between various populist, Slavophile and nationalist ideas on the one hand, and Western theories of modernisation on the other. Conservative, liberal and radical movements vied for dominance, with the most radical tendency of all, the Bolsheviks, in the end gaining ascendancy. Vladimir Lenin’s choice in October 1917 was in favour of a non-market and anti-liberal socialist path of modernisation that later, under Joseph Stalin, represented a peculiar mix of Western technical modernisation, again ‘from above’, while rejecting the Western spirit of modernity. Preface to the second edition ix In 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev, the last general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), tried to reform the Soviet system. His programme of perestroika (restructuring) sought to overcome the gap between form and content, but in the event precipitated the collapse of the Soviet system in its entirety, accompanied by the disintegration of the state in 1991. The imperial project was over, in both its Russian and Soviet guises, and a smaller Russian Federation emerged to find its way in the world. President Boris Yeltsin’s reforms in the 1990s once again sought to turn Russia on to a new path by forceful means. A brief constitutional inter- regnum ended in 1993 with the forcible dissolution of the old parliament and the adoption of a new constitution in December of that year, the one that still operates today. Yeltsin’s leadership was imbued with a certain spirit of ‘Bolshevism of the market’ when the dash for capitalist democracy was accompanied by the emergence of powerful oligarchic business groups and mass poverty. The country experienced the greatest economic collapse in peacetime of any country in history, with the national economy nearly halving in less than a decade. State capacity was diminished, governance chaotic, and criminality and corruption rampant. The 1990s have now gained almost mythical status in contemporary Russia as a period of disaster and collapse, even though the rudiments of a market economy were established and the foundations of a democratic polity created. It was this legacy of hybrid modernisation with which Putin was forced to come to terms. Putin considered the communist attempt to modernise the country by revolutionary means as doomed to failure, although he accepted that the Soviet regime between 1917 and 1991 had brought the country some benefits. His view of Yeltsin’s reforms appeared to be the opposite; as probably fated to succeed, but at a heavy price. Putin’s government sought to come to terms with the various developmental choices made in the past. He was faced with a number of stark choices, while at the same time aware that each carried penalties. The choice now was not so much over the direction in which the country should move, since a broad consensus had finally emerged that Russia should become a capitalist democracy inte- grated with the West. There was less agreement, however, over the methods to be adopted in pursuit of these goals. Russia sought to find a new path that would break the vicious circles of past developmental choices.

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