The Once and Future Tsar
Putin’s past and Russia’s future
History has proven that all dictatorships, all authoritarian forms of government, are transient.
— Vladimir Putin (1999)
Over two decades ago, in the post-Soviet chaos of the mid-1990s, the deputy mayor of St. Petersburg gave a cautionary TV interview. “It sometimes seems to us,” he said, speaking of his fellow Russians, “that if we had a firm hand to bring about order, then we would all live better, more comfortably, and in safety.” He paused, seeming to consider his next words before continuing. “But in fact, this comfort would be very short-lived. This firm hand would quickly begin to strangle us all.”
Within three years, that careful, calculating man would become the Russian President — and after almost two decades in power, his relentless grip on Russia has never felt more strangling.
Vladimir Putin’s fourth presidential inauguration was staged last week in a grand, gilded Kremlin hall that had once crowned three tsars: Alexander II, Alexander III, and Nicholas II. (Two of those three, of course, were assassinated — but don’t let that spoil the intended symbolism.) The televised spectacle was sanctified with a blessing from the head of the Russian Orthodox Church…
