[When Mr. Putin became acting president 15
years ago this month, Russia was an oligarchy — indeed the oligarchs, a small
group of men who had grown very rich in the preceding decade, were instrumental
in picking Putin out of obscurity and installing him at the helm. But within
months, he made the oligarchs an offer they could not refuse: give up all of
their political power and some of their wealth in exchange for safety, security
and continued prosperity, or else be stripped of all power and assets.]
 |
| President Vladimir Putin Associated Press |
Moscow’s most popular joke today is unfunny:
“Next year Putin, the ruble, and a barrel of oil will converge at just over
63.” Allow me to translate: The ruble will soon be trading at 63 to the dollar,
or nearly double what the dollar was worth in Russia a year ago (meaning most
Russians will be roughly 50 percent poorer); a barrel of oil will fall to $63 a
barrel, roughly 2005-level prices, devastating the Russian economy; and
President Vladimir Putin will turn 63. All three predictions are depressingly realistic:
The Russian economy appears headed for disaster just as certainly as Mr. Putin
will most likely celebrate his next birthday in October 2015. And more likely
than not, he will still be president of Russia then.
Conventional wisdom — or conventional hope — among many of the
people who would like to see the end of the Putin regime has long been that a
turn for the worse in the Russian economy will make the moneyed elite turn on
the Russian president. Journalists, pundits and Mr. Putin’s political opponents
in Russia have predicted that Western sanctions and the economic disaster they
hasten will result in a coup d'état staged by oligarchs. There is just one
problem with that argument: There are no oligarchs anymore.
When Mr. Putin became acting president 15
years ago this month, Russia was an oligarchy — indeed the oligarchs, a small
group of men who had grown very rich in the preceding decade, were instrumental
in picking Putin out of obscurity and installing him at the helm. But within
months, he made the oligarchs an offer they could not refuse: give up all of
their political power and some of their wealth in exchange for safety, security
and continued prosperity, or else be stripped of all power and assets.
He meant it. The media mogul Vladimir Gusinsky, who rejected the
new rules, was forced into exile in the summer of 2000, and uber-oligarch Boris
Berezovsky followed him a few months later. When the richest man in Russia,
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, refused any such bargain, he was jailed and his company
was taken away. The process of destroying the Russian oligarchy was completed.
In the 11 years since Mr. Khodorkovsky’s arrest, Mr. Putin has
consolidated power into what the political scientist Karen Dawisha calls “kleptocratic
authoritarianism.” Its essential characteristic is all-encompassing corruption,
which makes all the moneyed men of the Russian elite — and they are all men,
and all moneyed — profoundly interdependent. Many of them have held public
office during this time, but it has invariably been subject to three
interlocking conditions: They had to pay to get into office, and though they
could use the office for accumulating greater wealth, they could not use it to
wield or gain political power.
Giving up any pretense of independent political action has
remained a condition for staying wealthy and safe. When the billionaire Mikhail
Prokhorov tried, and rather modestly, to test this condition by reshaping an
essentially pro-Kremlin but populist political party three years ago, he was
yanked back harshly. Faced with the threat of losing his assets, he then fell
back into line. In the new era of economic hardship, he has stayed in line: In
his most recent demonstration of loyalty to the Kremlin, a media company Prokhorov
owns has just kicked the tiny, embattled independent television company Dozhd
(Rain) TV out of a temporary studio on its property.
Over these years of helping Mr. Putin solidify his regime, the
Russian rich have not only become entrenched in this corrupt system, but they
have lost the very ability to form and pursue a political agenda. Those who
predict an imminent coup — a coup by oligarchs as independent actors who can
form a coalition to pursue their economic interests — are far off the mark.
Imagine, rather, a large number of spiders all living in a single web. As the
economy takes a dive, they are compelled simply to hold on for dear life. As
the web begins to shrink, they can kick off it some of their weaker comrades —
as has already happened with two major Russian entrepreneurs, Vladimir
Yevtushenkov and Maxim Nogotkov, whose companies were taken away from them by
men richer and more powerful than they. Meanwhile, Mr. Putin, who still sits in
the middle of the intricate system he has woven over the course of 15 years,
faces no such risk.
Russia’s economic troubles probably mean that the moneyed elite
will suffer, with more of its members going into exile or even to jail while
their assets are redistributed. As for the rest of the Russian population, more
than 140 million people, bad economic news is just bad economic news: It spells
out-of-control inflation and real daily hardship. But neither the
self-cannibalizing rich nor the newly poor are likely to pose a challenge to
Mr. Putin’s power.
Masha
Gessen is the author, most recently, of “Words Will Break Cement: The Passion
of Pussy Riot.
