Putin's PastBy Paul J. Saunders
There is a great deal that we do not know about Russia's new acting president, Vladimir Putin. What we do know, however, provides grounds for serious concern about Russia's future direction. First of all, Mr. Putin spent the majority of his career in the KGB. This is not a problem in itself; like Western intelligence services, the KGB was organized in departments with varied responsibilities. Work in foreign intelligence, for example, should not be as troubling as time spent rooting out and suppressing dissidents. Mr. Putin clearly did some of the former, but also seems to have done some of the latter. His last post was in East Germany, which he left at approximately the time of the collapse of Communism there. The prospect that he may have been actively assisting the East German Stasi in resisting that collapse is unattractive, to say the least. After leaving Germany, Putin returned to St. Petersburg (then Leningrad), where he had been born and educated. He soon won positions as a foreign-policy aide and then deputy to the city's mayor, Anatoly Sobchak. This service in St. Petersburg, the point of origin of many of Russia's "radical reformers," such as former First Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly Chubais, has led many to make optimistic predictions of renewed economic and political change under a Putin presidency. They would do well, however, to remember the notorious corruption of the Sobchak era in St. Petersburg. Mayor Sobchak himself spent nearly two years outside Russia to evade a corruption investigation; interestingly, government prosecutors closed the case against him during the final weeks of the 1999 State Duma election campaign. Putin moved to Moscow in 1996 as a protg of Mr. Chubais, also the target of a variety of corruption charges (some of which led to his resignation from government). His first job there was as a deputy to Pavel Borodin, the Kremlin's business manager. Borodin — who reportedly controlled $600 billion in Russian government property and other assets — is at the center of numerous corruption scandals himself, including an alleged kickback scheme involving the Swiss construction firm Mabetex, which won lucrative contracts to restore Kremlin buildings and may have paid credit-card bills for members of the Yeltsin family. More recently, as prime minister, Mr. Putin masterminded Russia's brutal second intervention in Chechnya and was one of the architects of the unfair December Duma elections, in which the government mobilized regional governors and state and private media to ensure the success of the parties he endorsed. Governors who did "get out the vote" have already suffered retribution in the form of newly restricted financial resources for their regions. No less important, his parliamentary allies campaigned on platforms of virulent and anti-Western nationalism. Putin's installation as acting president raises yet more questions about his contacts with the corrupt Yeltsin inner circle. The election of a successor to Boris Yeltsin who could protect the interests of the former president, his family, and their closest allies among Russia's tycoons has been a paramount concern of those around Yeltsin, known euphemistically in Russia as "the Family." It is almost unthinkable that he could have achieved his new post, which virtually assures his election to succeed Yeltsin in March, without cutting a deal with the Family. His first official act — a decree protecting Yeltsin from prosecution — seems to confirm this. To summarize, we know the following about Mr. Putin: He was likely a member of the USSR's political police.He has a remarkable number of apparently corrupt associates. He started a bloody war against his own citizens. He professes respect for democracy, but seems to have little; and, he is probably beholden to the same oligarchy that captured the Yeltsin regime. Of course, history is not destiny; Vladimir Putin may overcome his past. If he is able to do this, his strong leadership — and his support in the Russian parliament — could create a very real opportunity for genuine reform in Russia and for a revival of the strained relationship between Washington and Moscow. But if he is not, the U.S. will face an assertive, nationalist Russia ruled by a young and ruthless man. Remarkably, the Clinton administration seems to have remained typically optimistic about Russian developments, despite this very real prospect. According to White House spokesman Joe Lockhart, President Clinton told Putin in a New Year's Day telephone conversation that he believed "they were off to a good start, and this was encouraging for the future of democracy in Russia." Such self-serving statements do little to prepare the American people for the serious potential dangers of the road ahead. Paul J. Saunders is the Director of the Nixon Center. A specialist in U.S.-Russian relations and Russian domestic politics, Mr. Saunders served previously as Assistant Director of the Center. Prior to joining the Nixon Center, he coordinated humanitarian and technical assistance projects in Russia and the former Soviet Union with the Fund for Democracy and Development and, earlier, worked as a Project Associate with the Center for Russian and Eurasian Programs of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Related:
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