A Tsar is Born: The Consolidation of Power in Putin’s Russia

The Road to Power

Before analyzing Putin’s consolidation of power, it is helpful to familiarize oneself with his personal and professional background. Born in 1952 to a factory worker and military conscript, Vladimir Vladimirovich grew up during the height of the Soviet Union.^[iii] Highly motivated, Putin was determined to rise above his humble origins and studied international law at Leningrad State University. Said to have had a childhood interest in espionage, he was eventually recruited into the counterintelligence department of the Leningrad KGB. In this capacity he conducted political intelligence with secret police in the German Democratic Republic. Once back in Russia, Putin acted as chief of staff for the mayor of St. Petersburg. By 1998, he was appointed head of the Russian Secret Police (FSB) and later became Secretary of the Security Council before serving as Prime Minister and ascending to the presidency.^[iv] Given this dossier, it is unsurprising that Putin is an advocate of order and discipline. In fact, he is mildly nostalgic for these aspects of the Soviet era. Unlike Yeltsin, who viewed the communist period negatively, Putin considers it yet another thread in the tapestry of Russian history. Consequently, he welcomed the return of several communist symbols, including the red star and a lyrically altered version of the Soviet national anthem. It must be noted that this nostalgia extends only to matters of discipline and does not represent Putin’s political inclinations, as was evidenced by his decision to remove pro-communist officials from the FSB.^[v]

Consolidation

Nowhere is President Putin’s desire for order and control more clearly demonstrated than in his impressive consolidation of power. In fact, shortly after being made Acting President, Putin called for a “dictatorship of law” so as to ensure an “effective vertical chain of authority.”^[vi] Afraid that regional governors enjoyed too much freedom under the Yeltsin administration, he was determined to re-centralize the Russian political system. This centralization is problematic, given that the Constitution of 1993 established a Federation comprised of republics, territories, regions, federal cities, autonomous regions, and autonomous areas.^[vii] Each division is given the right to self-governance as “exercised through referendums, elections, and forms of expression of their will, through elected and other bodies of local self-government.”^[viii] Article 72 further states that there are certain areas of “joint jurisdiction of the Russian Federation and the subjects of the Russian Federation,” which include issues regarding the possession and use of land.^[ix] These examples of “regional self-rule” and “shared-rule” meet the fundamental requirements for federalism as presented by Professor C. Ross of the department of Communist and Post-Communist Studies at the University of Dundee, Scotland.^[x] While the Russian constitution outlines a federalist system, Putin has systematically stripped localities of the authority guaranteed to them by their nation’s founding document.

Putin’s first move towards consolidation involved the creation of seven federal super-districts throughout the country. These districts generally contain a dozen federal subjects and are administered by plenipotentiary representatives known as polpredy.^[xi] Interestingly, these districts reflect pre-existent military divisions, which give Putin’s newly appointed representatives control over military resources throughout Russia. These presidential envoys also enjoy significant authority, which includes monitoring regional compliance with the Constitution, federal law, and presidential decrees, while overseeing “the selection and placement of personnel in the regional branches of the federal bureaucracy.”^[xii] By ensuring that each district included a variety of ethnicities and preventing any of the district capitals from being located in an ethnic republic, Putin diminished the influence of these republics relative toMoscow. Dubious as such “gerrymandering” may seem, these actions were within Putin’s legal authority. For instance, Article 83 of the Constitution states that the president “appoints and removes plenipotentiary representatives,” but does not specify how these regions are to be apportioned or what powers their administrators are to exercise. Thus, Putin extended his influence over regional officials while simultaneously lessening the efficacy of various republics. While not patently unconstitutional, these actions clearly move against the spirit of federalism embodied by the Federation’s founding document.