During his year as Prime Minister his name has turned into the description of his job.
Vladimir Putin will mark his first year since becoming Russia's Prime Minister, for the second time. For any other politician a step down the official career ladder would have meant a corresponding loss in power. But the past year has shown that in today's Russia Putin is more than his job. Putin the Premier wields as much influence as Putin the President. However, the number of problems facing him has increased many times.
What seemed no more than clouds on the horizon, today hangs ominously over the Prime Minister. As soon as he became Yeltsin's successor, Vladimir Putin declared that his goal was to turn Russia into a modern, competitive power. At the tail end of the first decade of the 21st century that task looks as daunting as at the beginning of the century.
In power after quitting power
The loss of the status as the number one person comes as a shock to any politician. In 1970 British Prime Minister Herald Wilson lost the election and was immediately stripped of all his privileges. Within a few days the ex-premier was spotted queuing up at a taxi stand near the Parliament building.
After that episode it was decided to treat retired prime ministers with more respect. But the memoirs of modern retirees, the likes of Margaret Thatcher or Bill Clinton, are replete with colourful episodes of their return to the world of ordinary mortals. Some had to "learn" to press the elevator button themselves and some to dial telephone numbers.
Vladimir Putin has not dropped out of power. But the role of the Prime Minister took a bit of getting used to. Meeting Medvedev officially after his inauguration, VVP took the presidential seat out of habit. He did not make that protocol blunder in their subsequent meetings. But television for several weeks stubbornly avoided showing pictures in which Putin was sitting in the place of the subordinate and Medvedev in the place of the chairman. By contrast, the redistribution of real power between the President and the Prime Minister happened almost automatically. In Russia before 2008 one of the main requirements for the incumbent head of Government was the ability to endure constant humiliation.
During Putin's presidency I had a chance to have a heart-to-heart talk with the then Prime Minister. Most of the nearly two-hour talk was used by the Prime Minister to berate his formal subordinate, a member of the Cabinet's economics team. I gathered from the Prime Minister's complaints that he had no authority to discipline the wicked Minister, let alone sack him.
Not that my interlocutor was a man who was unable to bang his fist on the table. Already under Yeltsin it became a tradition that the word of Kremlin courtiers close to Yeltsin carried more weight than the Prime Minister's. Under Putin this tradition was combined with his peculiar work style.
Although Mr Putin does not brook opposition, he is not the typical Russian boss with only two opinions: his own and the wrong one. As I was told many times by his immediate subordinates, one can argue with Vladimir Putin and even try to persuade him to change his mind.
There was something else about Mr Putin as President, which was the undoing of many Prime Ministers. Mr Putin insisted on going into the details and constantly "broke the chain of command" by having long talks with Cabinet ministers over the head of the Prime Minister.
This became all in a day's work when Kasyanov was Prime Minister. The Prime Minister declares at a Cabinet meeting that this or that should be done. A Deputy Prime Minister or a Minister who has direct access to VVP pops up: I talked with Vladimir Putin a couple of days ago and he has a very different opinion on the issue. Period.
To vent his fury Prime Minister Kasyanov would often call a Cabinet meeting for the sole purpose of humiliating Alexei Kudrin, whom he detested. But neither Kasyanov, nor his less influential successors, Fradkov and Zubkov, managed to change anything. When Mr Putin moved to the Government House it all became "ancient history."
Sometimes, of course, Kremlin officials forget that power no longer springs from the Kremlin. They are quickly and rudely brought down to earth. For example, in March Presidential Economics Advisor, Arkady Dvorkovich, was hauled over the coals because he had challenged Mr Kudrin.
Moving from the job of the head of the Kremlin's Expert Directorate to that of Medvedev's aide in May 2008, Dvorkovich moved to a new office, the former offices of the Soviet Party General Secretaries on the fifth floor of the complex on Old Square. However, the Kremlin's new economics guru chose to leave some of his personal effects in his old office. As the official in charge of the Expert Directorate, Mr Dvorkovich was well aware that the appointment of his new boss was constantly being put off.
Then suddenly Arkady Dvorkovich was summoned by the Chief of the Presidential Executive Office, Sergei Naryshkin. As always, Sergei Naryshkin was extremely polite, but straightforward. A stunned Mr Dvorkovich was told to get his things out of the old office, as the President had signed the appointment of a new boss of the Expert Department. That was insulting enough, but the Presidential Aide was even more shocked to learn the name of his successor. The former head of the Federal Insurance Supervision Service, Ilya Lomakin-Rumyantsev, is thought to be a protégé of the head of the Russian insurance lobby, State Duma deputy Vladislav Reznik and simultaneously a supporter... of Alexei Kudrin.
The most remarkable thing is that the shift in power from the Kremlin to the Government House did not involve any new legislation. Of course, some new provisions appeared in documents. For example, last July a paragraph on the role of the Government in external relations was added to the Concept of the Russian Foreign Policy.
The new procedure of appointing governors approved by Parliament in March can also be interpreted as a formal pruning of the President's powers. The appointment of candidates for Governor, formerly the prerogative of Presidential Envoys, will now be the prerogative of the United Russia Party, which Putin leads.
But these revisions in legislation make little difference and have no real impact on the alignment of political forces. Mr Putin remains the top "servant of the people" in Russia not because it is written down in the law. The reason is that he is Putin.
Forecast for the past
"Unlike many of my predecessors, I do not simply give directions, I work." "All these eight years I have worked like a galley slave, from morning until night, and I put all I had into my work." We all heard President Vladimir Putin utter the latter in February 2008. The first sentence was uttered by Communist Party General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev in a narrow circle in the early 1970s, as Anatoly Chernyayev, a former CPSU CC functionary, attests.
Nothing could be more inappropriate than comparing the current Prime Minister and the late General Secretary. They are different politicians who ruled different countries. But the scary idea that the two eras have a lot in common is rapidly spreading through the elite. Even experts close to the Kremlin speak about it openly.
The Modern Development Institute headed by President Medvedev, has just put out a two-volume book with a dreary title: "Strategies of Social Development of Russia: the Impact of the Crisis". But the content is anything but boring. "We see all the signs of political stagnation and we remember well the 1970s-1980s and know how such epochs end and that they inevitably breed societal alienation and apathy."
The analogies are abundant. Modern formal state institutions such as the State Duma are very similar to Brezhnev's Supreme Soviet, both being largely decorative rubber stamp parliaments with no inner content. "Previously, the sanction of the ‘curators' was required for the Duma to pass a law. Now it is required to table it, a United Russia deputy shared with me recently. In 2008 I tabled a thoroughly innocuous bill. Soon afterwards I received a call from the late Alexander Kosopkin, the President's representative at the Duma: "Tell me, have you cleared it with anyone, with us or the White House?"
Brezhnev did not retire because this was the demand of the elite and because his political survival depended on it. Vladimir Putin did not retire because this was the demand of the elite and his political survival hinged on it. In 2008 Vladimir Putin did not discuss his intention to become the Prime Minister even with his closest associates. But to nip in the bud even the possibility of turmoil within the elite, Mr Putin was sending one and the same signal in his private conversations with officials: don't worry, everything will remain as before. According to well informed people, it never occurred to VVP to retire. If he had retired he would soon have been hearing "what a bad President he had been."
In the ninth year of his rule Mr Putin openly admits that the current Russian economic model is wanting: labour productivity is not rising and the country still depends on commodity export. In the ninth year of his rule Brezhnev, addressing a plenary session of the CPSU Central Committee in December 1972, said: "We failed to achieve the main goal, to raise productivity and efficiency... We still earn 90 kopeck per rouble invested and the Americans, vice versa (one dollar per 90 cents invested)."
After the failure of the Kosygin reform, Brezhnev had no strategic recipe for taking the economy into a new dimension. Nor does Mr Putin today have much of a recipe. Until last year concentration of resources in state-owned corporations was thought to be the answer. But instead of churning out world-class technological breakthroughs, the only achievement was to fix sky-high executive salaries.
Official propaganda constantly plugs the line that the crisis is a powerful stimulus for us to shape up. But reality-minded experts are sceptical: "State-owned corporations will not survive in the crisis conditions. Pumping assets up and lumping everything together only works if you have a lot of money."
Some may see no connection between all these examples and feel they have been linked together to hurt Vladimir Putin. Nothing could be further from the truth. The connection exists and it is very strong. As for Mr Putin, it is not his fault, but his misfortune, like it is a misfortune for all of us.
The secret of bad luck
Each of us must have at least once asked himself: why can't we do as well as, for example, the Germans, the Japanese or the Americans? After all, we are not stupid or any less talented than they are. The answer, as is often the case, lies on the surface. What is dragging Russia down is its backward political system.
A hundred years ago the Russian economy was burgeoning. But the sclerotic regime of Emperor Nicholas II brought the country to a revolution and total collapse. In the New Economic Policy era Soviet people started getting used to comparatively normal life. But the Government declared that we were moving in the wrong direction and the country plunged into famine.
One may of course think that we have been "blessed" with particularly degenerative leaders. But this does not get us anywhere. It may sound cynical but politicians are essentially the same everywhere: they do exactly what the population allows them to do.
It transpired recently that the "high-minded human rights champion" Condoleezza Rice during the Bush era had sanctioned methods of interrogating suspects that were much favoured by the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot. It was called water-boarding or simulated drowning. When asked by an "arrogant" student whether it constituted torture, Professor Rice gave an answer that could well be held up as a masterly example of political hypocrisy for all times and nations: "If it has been sanctioned by the President it does not violate the anti-torture convention by definition."
Whoever stands at the helm in Russia, it is impossible to turn our political system from a backward one into a developed one in one stroke. Even under the most favourable conditions such processes take decades. So, as MK has argued more than once, Mr Putin acted in an absolutely logical way by stamping out the political ground in Russia: any other, even the most "democratically minded" leader, would have done the same.
But the tactical triumph that assured for VVP a comfortable presidency and premiership, is turning out to be a strategic loss. The backward political system, which rolled several steps back under Putin, is again dragging the country down.
One should not be simplistic and accuse VVP of failing to prepare the country for the world economic crisis. The financial reserves accumulated under President Putin so far (?) have enabled Prime Minister Putin to steer Russia comparatively safely through the flames of the world economic conflagration.
However, if one tries to see into the future, the US, the European Union and Japan can look towards a new period of growth once the crisis "pit" is behind them. Our country, after climbing out of the pit, may find itself facing a blank wall. There is hardly anyone in the Russian establishment who believes that we will be able to get rid of the "commodity curse" and build a new modern economy.
As a major Russian specialist on social issues, Yevgeny Gontmakher, said yesterday, the root of many problems is our attitude towards work: "We are capable of making breakthroughs, we can invent things. But the Russian worker is not good at working systematically. Our worker is not prepared to combine improvisation with intense and often ungrateful work. We are ‘a country of middle-level managers' to quote the Leningrad pop group. We have a very thin stratum of professionals. For all that, a young person who has a university degree in management has very high ambitions. A profit margin of 100% is still considered normal here."
However, many of our misfortunes are a direct consequence of the present structure of state power. Why is it that nobody at the top has a clear idea of how Russia can get rid of its status of a "commodity superpower"? The truth is born through argument. But VVP can tolerate arguments only in his narrow circle. Debates in other places such as Parliament or the media, are thought to be a dangerous heresy and a sign of disloyalty. Need one wonder that we are in an intellectual impasse?
Why was private business reluctant to invest in long-term projects that could have elevated our economy to a new level during the first nine years of Putin's rule? Only because one could get a 100% profit margin while doing nothing. Every businessman outside the wafer-thin stratum of the elite knows that security men could come after him at any moment and take everything away from him. If so, it makes sense to just use this country.
During Putin's presidency all these endemic problems did not worry the masses too much. During Putin's premiership, because of the global crisis, the stakes have dramatically increased: we have discovered that the world in which we lived was not entirely real.
The vertical power structure created by VVP is still very strong. But in some places it is already creaking. In some national republics, such as Bashkiria, the local authorities openly espouse rabid nationalism. From my conversations with high-ranking federal officials I understand that Moscow is well aware of it but is loath to take the risk and do something about it. The processes taking place inside the security counsels are too dreadful to contemplate. The crisis could not but have affected their incomes. And "a man with a rifle" will always find a way to solve the problem of his "empty stomach." "Bad luck for Vladimir Putin, I once heard a high-ranking official say. He intended to take a rest when serving as Prime Minister, and here we are."
VVP's position is unenviable. He cannot withdraw from the game at a time of crisis without huge personal political damage. Having accepted the job as Prime Minister Mr Putin waived this chance. He has to deliver. Sometimes one is a hostage even if one is Prime Minister.
Unfortunately, all Russians are hostages, not just Mr Putin. In terms of political tactics it was probably good for the country that Vladimir Putin was the Premier at the start of the world economic crisis.
History attests that there are no irreplaceable politicians. After Stalin's death in March 1953 many Soviet citizens were in panic about the future: "How will we live now?" But a year passed and it became clear that life would go on.
If Vladimir Putin had decided to retire last May, the ranks would sooner or later have been closed. But it would have taken months to create a new and stable power structure. In the autumn, the economic crisis would have been compounded by a serious political crisis. "Bring Putin back. When he was in power everything was fine. As soon as he quit everything collapsed." This would have been the prevailing public sentiment. By remaining at the helm, VVP unexpectedly put himself on the line: it turned out that he was not a magician.
But from the point of view of strategy the outlook is very different. It was not by chance that Vladimir Putin compared himself to a "galley slave." Whatever one may think about him, he gave a push to the country's development during his presidency. Still, any push can last for only so long. Anyone can get tired eventually. By refusing to "pass on the relay baton" VVP consigned himself to new "galleys" and the whole country to an endless repetition of the past.
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If you call yourself helmsman get into the boat. Sometimes even Prime Ministers become hostages.
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In Russia before 2008 one of the main requirements to the Prime Minister was the ability to endure constant humiliation.
By Mikhail Rostovsky