Russian and foreign observers are awaiting with bated breath for signals from the Kremlin and the Government House. They scrutinize the vocabulary and tone of Medvedev's utterances (seemingly liberal) and his (still somewhat stiff) demeanor. They make much of the expression on Putin's face during Medvedev's inauguration (allegedly an expression of suffering and confusion). They make a careful count of how frequently Medvedev and Putin are mentioned in the media (Medvedev has the lead). And of course they study the reshuffles in the top echelons of power (still totally confusing). Nobody knows anything for sure, everybody is just guessing whether Medvedev will preside over a "thaw", how long the current "dual power" situation will last and in general what will happen in a year's time and in 2012. No guesses are made as to what will happen beyond that date.
The secret of the great plan
Russian power has been growing increasingly secretive and mysterious even as it became less and less dependent on society throughout the post-Soviet period, but it was under Putin that these features became even more pronounced than in the early Soviet and in the late Soviet periods to become comparable only to the Stalin period. Operation "successor" was carried out in utter secrecy, and it looks as if our Ivanovs and Zubkovs (and possibly even Medvedev) had no more knowledge of the "Putin plan" than Bukharins and Yagodas had of Stalin's plans. The secret that shrouded operation "successor" smoothly gave way to the secret of the current "dual power".
It is natural and normal for a ruler to keep things secret, but with Putin, owing to his personal traits and his professional background, it is perhaps taken to extremes. Concealing information is part of government. If you have decided something for yourself you no longer need advice that creates unnecessary "statics", and if you have a plan that you have reason to believe may meet with resistance it is better to keep that plan secret from the people you fear.
But secrecy performs some other functions as well. If it is a really secret plan the planner seeks to keep it secret as if it did not exist at all. The secrecy of rulers, however, more often than not has a token character. It is designed to instill in the subjects a sense of impotence, along with fear and hope. The ruler must demonstrate self-confidence and appear to have well-thought-out, but secret plans, even if he is not sure of anything and has no plans. The fewer plans he has the more important it is for him to demonstrate that they exist.
In my opinion, Putin's operation "successor" and its sequel that we see today has many elements that are best attributed not to Machiavellian schemes or secret plans, but, on the contrary, to the absence of clear plans and uncertain goals.
It is clear that Putin has decided to abide by the Constitution and quit (although it is hard to explain why he did that). But why stage a public game of a popularity contest between Ivanov and Medvedev? In order to make a laughing stock of Ivanov afterwards? Why did he have to replace Fradkov with Zubkov, who momentarily seems to have imagined that he was being groomed for successor? Why create a counterweight to United Russia in the shape of A Just Russia only to become the head of United Russia (it is unclear what to do with A Just Russia now)?
Putin was probably very sincere when he said that he had "worked as a galley slave" for eight years and was tired. But if you are tired why become prime minister, a job which is at least as taxing and involves a lot more nerves. Putin was undoubtedly fudging his moves to prevent anyone from guessing what he had on his mind. He probably enjoyed the way he kept people guessing about his plans.
He was playing it by ear and he had diverse, shifting and contradictory plans in his head while the mask of a man who has a firm, but secret plan, was designed to cover up his conflicting urges and his confusion.
Ideas and values
In general, it is natural, considering Putin's situation, for him to have contradictory impulses. Putin decided to abide by the Constitution and quit. But it is unbelievable that a person who has decided to quit the job that gave him colossal power and respect would not regret his decision for a minute. He picked Medvedev as his successor, but it is hard to imagine that he never had any doubts from beginning to end. Surely he must have thought at times: "Perhaps I should have picked Ivanov or even Matviyenko?" He is tired, but he has no idea what he will do as a private individual. He trusts Medvedev but he cannot but remember that Yeltsin also had utter trust in his successor and that it did not prevent the successor, Putin, from kicking out Yeltsin's people and building his image by opposing it to that of Yeltsin, so he is securing his position vis-à-vis Medvedev by being both prime minister and the leader of United Russia. Conflicting goals, Putin's lingering indecision and the possibility (at least while he was president) to think up and implement any, even the most bizarre structure, account for the current ambivalent and contradictory situation: it is unclear whether he has quit or not and whether he may decide to stage a comeback.
The absence of a plan, disguised by creating an illusion of a secret plan, can be attributed not only to Putin's character and position. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that our former president's "system of values" is extremely contradictory and vague.
Wishes are always numerous and they can be contradictory and fanciful. But ideologies and systems of values suppress some urges and, on the contrary, reinforce others. If Putin had decided for himself that Russia needs a dictatorship, his natural wish not to relinquish power could provide a strong and conscious motive and he would not have quit as president. Conversely, if he thought that the country needed democracy he would have acted in a totally different way while he was president and when leaving his post. The thing is that he has neither pronounced undemocratic (monarchic, communistic, fascist, etc.) nor clear-cut democratic convictions.
He gradually pared down the democratic gains of the late 1980s and 1990s, but he did not do so because he thought that democracy was bad, but following his natural instinct as a ruler and because it made it easier to solve the host of concrete problems that cropped up. Dictatorship was emerging spontaneously, but when it was already one step away, he stopped short of taking that step because he did not want to become a dictator, with all the consequences that it entails. He was after all "a genuine democrat".
He has no clear idea of what political system Russia should have. The system of appointed successors initiated when Yeltsin was replaced by Putin and continued when Medvedev replaced Putin is not a plan or a "model", it has no ideological grounds. The bizarre situation of the president becoming the prime minister can hardly be described as a model. Neither Putin nor anyone else would ever say: "Presidents must appoint their successors and become prime ministers themselves, this is the system Russia should adhere to for centuries and which the rest of the world should seek to emulate."
It is our mess
If one tries to glean Putin's ideology from his various speeches, remarks and actions one is doomed to failure. "The Soviet Union turned out not to be viable" (one wonders why). "The disintegration of the USSR was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe." What does that mean? When did it dawn upon him that it was a catastrophe? If he had known it for a long time why didn't he defend the Soviet Union, for example, by joining the coup-makers in 1991? Putin thinks of the 1990s as the years of failure. But if so, why did he serve so loyally the leaders that embodied the spirit of the 1990s, Sobchak and later Yeltsin? Putin was certainly honest when he spoke about himself as a genuine democrat, but he was very approving of Ivan Ilyin, who served Hitler, and he chose as his spiritual mentor a person whose main article of faith is probably the fight against "Western civilisation".
The list of such contradictions and curiosities goes on and on. On balance, it is a hodge-podge of contradictory ideas. Such a hodge-podge cannot serve as motivation for any coherent policy. A clearly articulated idea can be implemented, it may or may not work, but if the ideas are vague and contradictory, you can never be certain of the result. You move in a certain direction but when you move too far you feel scared and you retreat.
However, if a politician has no overarching political idea it is hard for him to make clear personal plans. Does Putin plan to come back in 2012? The chances are that he does not know himself ("time will tell").
The hodge-podge is not only the personal problem of our former president and current prime minister. It is characteristic of our popular consciousness. Every opinion poll tends to reveal roughly the same contradictions as we see in Putin's thinking. Our society does not seem to be averse to democracy and has no other models in mind, but it does not seem to be wholeheartedly in favour of democracy.
We seem to see ourselves as part of Europe, but we fear the expansion of NATO and the "colour revolutions", and so on and so forth. Putin's ideological evolution replicates the ideological evolution of our society.
When society was convinced that there was no alternative to the CPSU and the USSR, which were supposed to be eternal, Putin was a CPSU member, probably a half-hearted member, like most. When society veered towards democracy and the market he helped Sobchak. When society was swept by a religious wave he became a fervent Orthodox believer. (When I see television pictures of Putin in a church I cannot help feeling that his face wore the same expression when he presided over a Party meeting at the KGB). When society came to regret the loss of the USSR he too came to regret it, and obviously he has no more insight into the causes of the demise of the USSR than most of us ("turned out not to be viable").
This has nothing to do with flip-flopping or being hypocritical. The fact is that Putin's consciousness is a replica of mass consciousness, microcosm repeats macrocosm only with slight individual deviations. That partly accounts for Putin's popularity while a person with firmly cast views would have caused resentment at least among some people. An ideologically amorphous society is matched by the ideologically amorphous individuality of the ruler. If the ruler can convince people that he knows where he is going and that he has a plan, nothing could be finer. Society can drift and be absolutely calm because the captain is at the helm.
The bizarre and confused situation and total unpredictability of our political future are at the end of the day engendered by the chaos and "mess" in our popular consciousness, the consciousness of a society which cannot live under democracy but cannot renounce it because there are no alternative models. At present society is waiting with bated breath for the leaders' decisions. But the leaders' thinking is equally contradictory and uncertain. The leaders themselves don't know which way to go.
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Medvedev's vocabulary is a shade more ideologically direct than Putin's. Putin would never have said that "freedom is better than non-freedom" (and vice versa, he would never have said that "non-freedom is better than freedom"). But Medvedev too cannot be too certain (otherwise Putin would not have picked him). President Medvedev's position is much more complicated than that of President Putin, who did not have United Russia or Putin the prime minister to deal with. So, the drift is likely to continue. Nobody knows - neither Medvedev nor Putin, nor any of us - what will happen beyond 2012.