Russia: Is Putin Bringing Back the Old USSR?

Does Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin scare you? Consider the following facts:

Since 2000, thirteen journalists have been murdered in Russia in similar ways, all execution-style killings in the old KGB fashion, and not one of these murders has resulted in a conviction. Only recently have people been arrested in the murder of one of these journalists. Each of the journalists was hot on the trail of a story that would bring embarrassment or scandal to Putin or his government. Another Russian journalist, an expatriate in the UK, was killed in a sensational manner: poisoning through irradiation, using radium that was worth at least $2 million.

Putin managed to rise from near-total obscurity to presidency of Russia in less than two years, bypassing dozens of more experienced and prominent men.

Putin has filled nearly all important government positions with men he worked with in the old KGB, and some of them have been involved in questionable actions.

Russia just passed an election bill forbidding the creation of a negative image of political opponents - whether the image is deserved or not. How can you campaign against someone if you can't point out their flaws?

Who Is Vladimir Putin?

Vladimir Putin was born to a family with distant political connections; his grandfather had been a cook to both Lenin and Stalin, and his father worked in espionage and sabotage during World War II. Putin joined the Communist Party in college, and has never resigned; directly out of college in 1975, he joined the KGB.

Most of his KGB experience was in foreign intelligence, with a large chunk of time spent in pre-unification East Germany. He spent his years there steadily rising to the top; while he worked mostly in obscurity, he made excellent connections, and developed a keen sense of politics and survival. In 1991, during the KGB's abortive attempt to redirect Mikhail Gorbachev's government, Putin made the wise decision to resign his position and enter politics. For the next six years, he worked his way up the St. Petersburg government chain, until a lucky break brought him to President Yeltsin's attention in 1997.

Yeltsin made him the deputy chief of staff in 1998, and later in the year the head of the FSB - a successor agency to the disbanded KGB. By October, Putin had become a member of the Security Council, an advisory board that conceived approaches to national security; and six months later, Putin became the head of the board.

At about this same time, in April 1999, a strange thing happened. Yury Skuratov, the Prosecutor General of Russia, was allegedly caught on tape having an orgy with two young women. Now, Skuratov had been very adversarial to Yeltsin and heavily involved in investigating government corruption - an area that Putin himself was likely deep into. Putin and the Interior Minister Sergei Stepashin televised a press conference at which they played this video, telling their audience that the image on the tape had been positively identified as Skuratov by FSB analysis, and that the little orgy with the two girls had been paid for by people Skuratov had been investigating for criminal misdeeds.

Very shortly thereafter in August 1999, Putin was appointed one of three First Deputy Prime Ministers by Yeltsin - and then later in the day to Acting Prime Minister. In only eighteen months, Putin had risen from a relatively obscure position in St. Petersburg to being the right-hand man of the Russian President. This was a precarious position that had been held by five people within the previous year and a half, and few anticipated the obscure Putin to hold it any longer than the others had. But his aggressive attitude toward the Chechnyan war changed public sentiment. Putin fought hard to gain a law-and-order image, and helped the Russian army score serious victories in Chechnya. By the end of the year, the unknown man had built public sentiment behind him and become the hope of Russia, his star rising as the Russian Bear Yeltsin's was declining.

By the end of 1999, Putin became the acting President of Russia when Yeltsin unexpectedly resigned. Early elections were held, putting all candidates at a disadvantage - except for Putin, who was now a popular incumbent. He won easily in the first round of voting.

In Putin's first term, he busied himself stabilizing Russia. Dozens of businessmen were prosecuted, many fleeing the country, and their possessions seized for the state; this resulted in the enrichment of the Russian state. The FSB has been sliding slowly toward becoming a new version of the KGB. Media were widely silenced, and protests were quashed ruthlessly by police forces. Putin also is moving more closely toward presidential control of everything in Russia through such moves as eliminating elections of state governors, enabling the President to appoint them instead.

Putin won the elections in 2004 for his second - and according to the Russian constitution, last - term, but has been talking about changing the constitution to allow for longer terms for its president. There is wide speculation that he does not intend to step down at the end of his term, but rather seize power for himself. Putin, naturally, denies this.

What Will Putin Do?

We don't really know right now where Russia's headed, or what Putin plans to do in order to retain power - which is almost certainly going to happen. But we do know that some alarming developments for the United States have appeared: his support for our sworn enemy Iran, his blocking of every move America makes at the UN, his resistance to a missile shield in the former Soviet Eastern Bloc (and offering a completely unsatisfactory site as an alternate place for a shield). But the most disturbing developments may be the ones with Russia's sworn enemy, China.

Russia right now has negative population growth - fewer people are having children, more people are dying, and no one wants to move there. China has the exact opposite problem. It makes sense for the two countries - one a superpower, the other a former superpower - to join forces, allow Chinese people to expand into Russian territory, and for Russia to help supply China's growing energy needs. Movement has already happened toward an agreement. For the first time ever, China and Russia are engaging in war games together, on Russian territory.

If we can tear our attention away from the Middle East, it might be time for America to pay attention to developments in the Far East. This may be where our biggest problems will arise in the next twenty years or so.