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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)

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Posted by: Brian   2003-11-3 1:07:12 AM  

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Posted by: .com   2003-11-2 10:26:53 AM  

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Posted by: Super Hose   2003-11-2 8:41:18 AM  

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