You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Submit your comments on this article
Central Asia
Russia settles in for second act of Kremlin power struggle
2003-11-02
From ChannelNewsAsia... EFL and Fair Use
As the political dust settles in Russia after a frantic week of rumor and bombshell announcements, Moscow is preparing for the second act of a power struggle between warring Kremlin clans.
Is Putin the new Russian Dictator?
The plot and characters are in the best tradition of Kremlin intrigues — ex-KGB agents battling big business advocates for the president’s ear as businessmen the world over hold their breath.
And we know who’s got the upper hand in that struggle...
Add to the mix a jailed tycoon, one of the world’s largest oil companies, suspense about the direction of a former superpower shaking off its Communist past, and the stage is set for quite a drama.
A made-for-TV Movie plot if I ever heard one...
The first act climaxed last week with the arrest and detention of Russia’s richest man, the resignation of the Kremlin’s "gray cardinal," a stock market tumble and a prosecutor’s move to effectively seize shares in the country’s largest oil company.
Gray Cardinal - man, that’s a cool image... As usual. the key is to follow the money...
It began when Vladimir Putin, a one-time KGB agent, was suddenly annointed successor to the Russian presidency by his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin. When he assumed the office in March of 2000, the political neophyte kept many people from the Yeltsin regime in his administration. They became known as "the Family."
How remarkably appropriate!
The Family was closely linked to the oligarchs, men who got super-rich during the tumult of post-Soviet years by snapping up huge companies for tiny prices in shadowy privatization deals.
In the best tradition of corruption...
In Putin’s administration, this practice was personified by presidential chief of staff Alexander Voloshin, a quiet-spoken man with a Mona Lisa smile, steel will and political skills so deft that he was nicknamed the Kremlin’s "gray cardinal."
Is this a novel - or reel life? Read the rest and know the players...
...More...
I don’t have much good to say about Prez Putty, his record over the last 18 months has proven to be self-serving and self-aggrandizing - a statesman or People’s Advocate, he’s not. Just how corrupt is he? Just how much latitude will his pop-idol fan club (a.k.a. the Russian electorate) allow him? This little tempest should clarify things quite a bit.

They keep coming back to the fact that Putin's an ex-KGB man, but that's hitting on the wrong key. I haven't followed Russian politix in detail for ten years, so I'm not an expert. But my guess would be that Putin's power base includes the FSB — successor to the KGB — but isn't limited to it.

There had to be "understandings" made for him to get to the position he was in when Boris stepped down. If he hadn't, he'd have gone the way of Lebedev, a true hero who was used (as Yeltsin's vice president at the beginning of this second term) and then tossed aside. Yeltsin gave up his chance at greatness after the August Coup by allowing his "family" — both his immediate family and his cronies — to pretty much rape the Russian economy. The Soviets raised them with stories of rapacious capitalism, so when they became capitalists they also became rapacious. Gangsterism, personified by "mafias" was rampant when Putin took over.

Say what you will about the KGB, but the operational ranks were mostly good Party men, and I suspect a substantial percentage had an instinctive aversion to the mafia idea. It was the antithesis of their education and indoctrination. When the organization was rebuilt much of the model came from the FBI — which spent years fighting the American mafia. Russian went from the near-anarchy of the Yeltsin era — the Russian Far East was ruled as a virtual satrapy by its warlord, for example — closer to the "strong hand at the helm" model under Putin. But Putin's won my respect by working, for the most part, within the constraints of the Yeltsin-era reforms. He plays by the rules most of the time, even when they're not to his advantage. I don't think he's going to morph into a dictator, and the Russians themselves seem to like him, probably because he does negotiate that delicate middle ground. I think his historical reputation will be very good, assuming he keeps going the way he has been. But one of the things he absolutely has to do is clean out the Yeltsin deadwood, which, remember, hasn't stopped being rapacious.
Posted by:.com (aka The Black Cardinal)

#14  I know Khodorkovsky's son so that biases my outlook but this crackdown is not in America's national interests. Aside from all that money being on the line and Exxon wants to buy his shares, I do not see how America gains from seeing Russia take control of more industry. We need an increase in oil output, that can only come from the private sector.
Posted by: Brian   2003-11-3 1:07:12 AM  

#13  "That Putin will be re-elected."

I know that.

"And the fact that you are having a fit about it underscores your lack of understanding of the Russian people."

What lack of understanding is that? I think of him a tyrant who is resurrecting what he can of the Soviet Union. You are constantly talking about what the Russian majority wants, which is, if I understand you correctly, to smash the minority under its boot.

Fine, you may go on ahead liking that scenario. But how does that dispute my point? I consider it a nightmare. If the Russian people want a tyrant, then how is that any better than the Afghani people wanting the Islamofascist Taliban?

You seem to be truly enjoying and supporting the idea that certain nations need tyrannies to work. Even if you are right, how the *hell* is that a happy knowledge to have? If Russia is *destined* to forever and ever be an enemy of democracy and freedom, as you are claiming, how in the world does that make the global situation one iota better, than in *my* opinion? In my opinion the Russian people had a chance for democratic reform, like most of Eastern Europe, and they lost it.

In your version they never had a chance at all. If anything you are describing an even more horribly pessimistic worldview than mine is.

As for the double standard, what double standard is that? I very consistently don't like tyrants (elected or not), or violations of human rights, or slides into autocracy. When have I shown a different standard?
Posted by: Aris Katsaris   2003-11-2 7:37:41 PM  

#12  A Russian friend once told me that what Russia needed was not democracy but a tsar-like figure to lead the people. Putin fits that description pretty well. He hasn't screwed up too badly, and brought in some semblance of order to the country.
He has, but so did the Taliban (& were they more brutal than Dostum, say?) The Russkiys have had this thing about great men & absolute power ever since the time of St Vladimir, I really don't think it's a good idea to encourage them in this delusion (...the shops were full under Stalin - yeah cos there weren't so 'eaters' then were there? And when the shops were empty who'd have dared to complain?) I blame the Byzantines myself...
Posted by: Dave   2003-11-2 6:49:21 PM  

#11  Your point is what exactly?

That Putin will be re-elected. And the fact that you are having a fit about it underscores your lack of understanding of the Russian people.

You have a double standard Aris. No use in arguing anything with you.
Posted by: Rafael   2003-11-2 6:47:54 PM  

#10  Rafael> "A Russian friend once told me that what Russia needed was not democracy but a tsar-like figure to lead the people. Putin fits that description pretty well."

I too know fascists who feel that nations don't need democracies but tyrants. Your point is what exactly?

"He hasn't screwed up too badly, and brought in some semblance of order to the country."

Like the Taliban brought order to Afghanistan? Or Hitler to Germany?

If this will be the case, Aris, the self-proclaimed champion of people's right to choose (remember the EU referendums??),

Yes, I remember the EU referendums. And like every democrat I understand that the rights of the many to decide end at the point where the inalienable rights of the one begin.

Which is quite unlike the nationalists' and fascists' version of democracy -- In that version the many have the right to vote only as long as they defend the absolute nationalistic sovereignty and racial genetic ethnic purity of our god-blessed nation, may our divinely-appointed president rule for ever, hooplah!

Aka, the version of democracy which *you* support and in which version those EU referendums are somehow invalid, given how they produced results you disliked.

then shouldn't you accept that your assertion about the freedoms and civil rights in Russia simply does not hold?

Are you actually telling me that you feel that human and civil rights have to do with what the *majority* feels they should be? That they are not fundamental and inalienable for all human beings? That elected officials have the right to violate them?

What the ordinary Russian feels about Putin becomes less and less relevant given how all non-state media have been shut down, and Putin's most vocal opponents have been exiled, imprisoned or assassinated.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris   2003-11-2 6:06:08 PM  

#9  A Russian friend once told me that what Russia needed was not democracy but a tsar-like figure to lead the people.

Perhaps. But I've got a friend who says they need a great conductor and someone who can whip up on Deep Blue
Posted by: Shipman   2003-11-2 6:02:34 PM  

#8  A Russian friend once told me that what Russia needed was not democracy but a tsar-like figure to lead the people. Putin fits that description pretty well. He hasn't screwed up too badly, and brought in some semblance of order to the country.

Aris: Russia under Putin has been consistently losing all freedoms and civil rights.

Putin will be re-elected again and again and again, unless someone more tsar-like appears on the horizon. If this will be the case, Aris, the self-proclaimed champion of people's right to choose (remember the EU referendums??), then shouldn't you accept that your assertion about the freedoms and civil rights in Russia simply does not hold? In other words, ask the ordinary Russian what he thinks about Putin, freedom, and civil rights, and I bet you'll get a surprising answer. Surprising to you, that is.
Posted by: Rafael   2003-11-2 5:50:54 PM  

#7  Possibly enlightening article from 2000 in the Asia Times:
http://www.atimes.com/c-asia/BF06Ag02.html
Posted by: mojo   2003-11-2 3:22:41 PM  

#6  However, the guy Vlad put in chains is one bad mofo. While he's been "charitable" with some millions, he and his pals grabbed up a big chunk of Russian oil assets all for themselves in the Yeltsin era. I'm not weeping for them.
Posted by: Steve White   2003-11-2 3:21:03 PM  

#5  [heart palpitations] almost agree... [seizure] with... [gasp] Aris... [shudder] [groan]
Posted by: .com   2003-11-2 11:37:15 AM  

#4  Putin seems to get the same bad rap that Bush gets from those who desire light switch solutions to all problems. I can't imagine trying to straighten out the Russian economy after the way they privatized the national industries. I hope that the coalition follows a model simular to the break-up of Ma Bell, where that model fits.
Posted by: Super Hose   2003-11-2 11:24:47 AM  

#3  Russia under Putin has been consistently losing all freedoms and civil rights. I find no reason to be happy or optimistic about where he's taking his country.

Non-state controlled businesses are now being shut down even as non-state controlled media were shut down a little while ago. We are heading for Soviet Union Jr, it seems to me.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris   2003-11-2 11:24:08 AM  

#2  Fred - sure hope you're right about Putin. His reversal and outright opposition regards Iraq, after buddying up to Dubya in Crawford, is when I realized there was a serious opportunist component. Russia needs a strong hand, indeed - it needs a George Washington who'll be consistent in turning down the crown every time it's offered, and forgoing the idolatry. I'll shut up and keep watching - maybe he can pull it off. Thx for the BG!!!
Posted by: .com   2003-11-2 10:26:53 AM  

#1  There also seems to be a basing poker game in progress in the stans, the Korean situation, and not to forget the channel argument with the Ukraine. Add in Chechnya and you have some real stew warming up in Russia.
Posted by: Super Hose   2003-11-2 8:41:18 AM  

00:00