Social Europe

politics, economy and employment & labour

  • Themes
    • Strategic autonomy
    • War in Ukraine
    • European digital sphere
    • Recovery and resilience
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Dossiers
    • Occasional Papers
    • Research Essays
    • Brexit Paper Series
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Newsletter

The origins of Putin’s totalitarianism

Nina L Khrushcheva 29th April 2022

The siloviki who gained power during Putin’s early years have been replaced by faceless security technocrats—the real heirs to the KGB.

Putin,KGB,FSB,siloviki,totalitarianism
Mikhail Mishustin, Putin’s pliant prime minister (Asatur Yesayants / shutterstock.com)

In late 1999, as the frail Boris Yeltsin searched for a successor among the ranks of the security services, a bleak joke circulated in Russia. ‘Why are communists better than the KGB?’ went the setup. ‘Because the communists will scold you, but the KGB will hang you.’ It was less a joke than a warning. Unfortunately, most Russians didn’t get it.

That year, Vladimir Putin—a KGB man by now leading its successor agency, the Federal Security Service—was appointed prime minister. Soon after, he allegedly quipped to his former FSB colleagues: ‘The task of infiltrating the highest level of government is accomplished.’ This, too, should have set off alarm bells—not least because Putin had long admired Yuri Andropov, the former KGB chief who had, for two long years, ruled the Soviet Union with an iron fist.

After the economic and political turmoil of the post-Soviet 1990s, people craved stability, and were willing to restore the KGB to the top echelons of government to get it. This gave Putin, who was elected president in 2000, the opening he needed to establish Andropov-style authority over all aspects of the Russian system, not least strategic industries such as oil and gas.

Putin felt threatened by the private moguls who had gained control of those industries during Yeltsin’s chaotic presidency. So, he put the so-called siloviki—affiliates of the military and security services, such as the former KGB agents Igor Sechin and Sergey Chemezov—in charge instead.


Our job is keeping you informed!


Subscribe to our free newsletter and stay up to date with the latest Social Europe content. We will never send you spam and you can unsubscribe anytime.

Sign up here

Last legs

How did the heirs of organisations that had wrought such terror during Joseph Stalin’s rule in the 1930s and 1940s manage to secure power in the 21st century? After all, following Nikita Khrushchev’s de-Stalinisation of the 1950s and Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika in the late 1980s, the KGB had seemed to be on its last legs, even to its own operatives. Many, including Putin, retired during Gorbachev’s rule, thinking the security services would never recover.

That changed after the Soviet Union’s collapse. As it turned out, the KGB was better equipped to navigate the transition to capitalism than any other Soviet institution. Its operatives were amoral, pragmatic, well connected, unfazed by irregular working hours and adept at self-serving manipulation.

It helped that the state security organisations were never disbanded. The KGB not only survived Gorbachev; a version of it—largely defanged and rebranded as the FSB—survived Yeltsin. Russian leaders, liberal or not, have always depended on the security services to maintain their power. What was different under Putin (and under Andropov in Soviet times) was the extent to which representatives of those services wielded power themselves.

For Putin, strengthening the state’s security organs seemed like insurance against upheavals such as those of 1991, which brought the demise of what he calls ‘historical Russia’. And Putin takes great pride in the stability of the political system he has built—a process which was undoubtedly helped along by high energy prices and relatively competent management by some siloviki.

Loyal patriots

But maintaining that system is different from building it. Putin’s approach to governing his creation is embodied in the amendments passed in the sham constitutional referendum of 2020, which not only give him a legal opening to lead for many more years but also define the ideal Russian citizen: a patriot, loyal to the state above all.

This approach has brought with it a shift in the role of the security services in the state apparatus. Putin used to listen to siloviki such as Sechin and Chemezov, and even delegated critical functions to associates. Now, he dictates policy without entertaining alternative views, delegating implementation to government technocrats, led by the robotic prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin. More than ever, day-to-day power is in the hands of security organs, such as the Federal Service for Supervision in Education and Science (Rosobrnadzor), the Federal Penitentiary Service and the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor).

These new pillars of the apparatus of state control are impersonal entities with a singular focus: cleansing the political space of anything anti-Kremlin—now understood as anti-Russian—and punishing those who fail to show sufficient ‘loyalty’. Unlike the siloviki, they do not counsel Putin on how best to tackle the challenges Russia faces or recognise the importance of international engagement for Russia’s internal development. Instead, they blindly pursue Putin’s goal of securing total control over Russia at all costs.

Final repudiation

Alexei Navalny, the imprisoned anti-corruption lawyer and opposition leader, believes that the Kremlin’s primary goal in invading Ukraine was to distract Russians from declining living standards and trigger a rally-around-the-flag effect. More fundamentally, however, the war amounts to a final repudiation of the FSB figures who gained power during Putin’s early years and confirmation of the dominance of Russia’s nameless security technocrats—the real heirs to the KGB. Putin, of course, remains at the top; the new system requires as much.


We need your support


Social Europe is an independent publisher and we believe in freely available content. For this model to be sustainable, however, we depend on the solidarity of our readers. Become a Social Europe member for less than 5 Euro per month and help us produce more articles, podcasts and videos. Thank you very much for your support!

Become a Social Europe Member

The chilling implications of this shift are currently on display across Russia. Since Putin launched his ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine, more than 15,000 anti-war protesters, including more than 400 minors, have been detained. Independent media outlets have been blocked or disbanded, with foreign media having little choice but to leave the country. Sharing anything other than the official Ministry of Defence war narrative is punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

In this atmosphere of total repression—now likened to the Stalin era—Russians who have not fled are falling in line. Some 80 per cent of Russians now report that they support the ‘operation’ in Ukraine. That is not surprising. The faceless hangman reigns again in Russia.

Republication forbidden—copyright Project Syndicate 2022, ‘The origins of Putin’s totalitarianism’

Nina L Khrushcheva
Nina L Khrushcheva

Nina L Khrushcheva is professor of international affairs at the New School in New York and co-author of In Putin’s Footsteps: Searching for the Soul of an Empire Across Russia’s Eleven Time Zones (St Martin's Press).

You are here: Home / Politics / The origins of Putin’s totalitarianism

Most Popular Posts

Russian soldiers' mothers,war,Ukraine The Ukraine war and Russian soldiers’ mothersJennifer Mathers and Natasha Danilova
IGU,documents,International Gas Union,lobby,lobbying,sustainable finance taxonomy,green gas,EU,COP ‘Gaslighting’ Europe on fossil fuelsFaye Holder
Schengen,Fortress Europe,Romania,Bulgaria Romania and Bulgaria stuck in EU’s second tierMagdalena Ulceluse
income inequality,inequality,Gini,1 per cent,elephant chart,elephant Global income inequality: time to revise the elephantBranko Milanovic
Orbán,Hungary,Russia,Putin,sanctions,European Union,EU,European Parliament,commission,funds,funding Time to confront Europe’s rogue state—HungaryStephen Pogány

Most Recent Posts

reality check,EU foreign policy,Russia Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—a reality check for the EUHeidi Mauer, Richard Whitman and Nicholas Wright
permanent EU investment fund,Recovery and Resilience Facility,public investment,RRF Towards a permanent EU investment fundPhilipp Heimberger and Andreas Lichtenberger
sustainability,SDGs,Finland Embedding sustainability in a government programmeJohanna Juselius
social dialogue,social partners Social dialogue must be at the heart of Europe’s futureClaes-Mikael Ståhl
Jacinda Ardern,women,leadership,New Zealand What it means when Jacinda Ardern calls timePeter Davis

Other Social Europe Publications

front cover scaled Towards a social-democratic century?
Cover e1655225066994 National recovery and resilience plans
Untitled design The transatlantic relationship
Women Corona e1631700896969 500 Women and the coronavirus crisis
sere12 1 RE No. 12: Why No Economic Democracy in Sweden?

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

The winter issue of the Progressive Post magazine from FEPS is out!

The sequence of recent catastrophes has thrust new words into our vocabulary—'polycrisis', for example, even 'permacrisis'. These challenges have multiple origins, reinforce each other and cannot be tackled individually. But could they also be opportunities for the EU?

This issue offers compelling analyses on the European health union, multilateralism and international co-operation, the state of the union, political alternatives to the narrative imposed by the right and much more!


DOWNLOAD HERE

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

The macroeconomic effects of re-applying the EU fiscal rules

Against the background of the European Commission's reform plans for the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), this policy brief uses the macroeconometric multi-country model NiGEM to simulate the macroeconomic implications of the most relevant reform options from 2024 onwards. Next to a return to the existing and unreformed rules, the most prominent options include an expenditure rule linked to a debt anchor.

Our results for the euro area and its four biggest economies—France, Italy, Germany and Spain—indicate that returning to the rules of the SGP would lead to severe cuts in public spending, particularly if the SGP rules were interpreted as in the past. A more flexible interpretation would only somewhat ease the fiscal-adjustment burden. An expenditure rule along the lines of the European Fiscal Board would, however, not necessarily alleviate that burden in and of itself.

Our simulations show great care must be taken to specify the expenditure rule, such that fiscal consolidation is achieved in a growth-friendly way. Raising the debt ceiling to 90 per cent of gross domestic product and applying less demanding fiscal adjustments, as proposed by the IMK, would go a long way.


DOWNLOAD HERE

ILO advertisement

Global Wage Report 2022-23: The impact of inflation and COVID-19 on wages and purchasing power

The International Labour Organization's Global Wage Report is a key reference on wages and wage inequality for the academic community and policy-makers around the world.

This eighth edition of the report, The Impact of inflation and COVID-19 on wages and purchasing power, examines the evolution of real wages, giving a unique picture of wage trends globally and by region. The report includes evidence on how wages have evolved through the COVID-19 crisis as well as how the current inflationary context is biting into real wage growth in most regions of the world. The report shows that for the first time in the 21st century real wage growth has fallen to negative values while, at the same time, the gap between real productivity growth and real wage growth continues to widen.

The report analysis the evolution of the real total wage bill from 2019 to 2022 to show how its different components—employment, nominal wages and inflation—have changed during the COVID-19 crisis and, more recently, during the cost-of-living crisis. The decomposition of the total wage bill, and its evolution, is shown for all wage employees and distinguishes between women and men. The report also looks at changes in wage inequality and the gender pay gap to reveal how COVID-19 may have contributed to increasing income inequality in different regions of the world. Together, the empirical evidence in the report becomes the backbone of a policy discussion that could play a key role in a human-centred recovery from the different ongoing crises.


DOWNLOAD HERE

ETUI advertisement

The EU recovery strategy: a blueprint for a more Social Europe or a house of cards?

This new ETUI paper explores the European Union recovery strategy, with a focus on its potentially transformative aspects vis-à-vis European integration and its implications for the social dimension of the EU’s socio-economic governance. In particular, it reflects on whether the agreed measures provide sufficient safeguards against the spectre of austerity and whether these constitute steps away from treating social and labour policies as mere ‘variables’ of economic growth.


DOWNLOAD HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Eurofound webinar: Making telework work for everyone

Since 2020 more European workers and managers have enjoyed greater flexibility and autonomy in work and are reporting their preference for hybrid working. Also driven by technological developments and structural changes in employment, organisations are now integrating telework more permanently into their workplace.

To reflect on these shifts, on 6 December Eurofound researchers Oscar Vargas and John Hurley explored the challenges and opportunities of the surge in telework, as well as the overall growth of telework and teleworkable jobs in the EU and what this means for workers, managers, companies and policymakers.


WATCH THE WEBINAR HERE

About Social Europe

Our Mission

Article Submission

Membership

Advertisements

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

Social Europe Archives

Search Social Europe

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Follow us

RSS Feed

Follow us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on LinkedIn

Follow us on YouTube