Even the most expert analysis is biased towards the rational extrapolation of known parameters. Gorbachev surprised the experts, and probably himself into the bargain: Both the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the peaceful way it came about remained at the outer edge of speculation for most of his time in the Kremlin. There is even today no commonly accepted account of why it happened, whether in Russia and other former Soviet states, or in the wider world.
It is a widely held assumption that, when Putin goes, he will be replaced by an analogous figure, and that his system will therefore last for the foreseeable future, for worse or just possibly for better. The lessons that he and his circle have drawn from the way that the Soviet Union collapsed are that experiments are dangerous, and that in Russia power rests on force. The dominant convictions in the Kremlin, which are shared by a substantial portion of the wider Russian population, are that: anything decided in the outside world without Russia is directed against Russia; others have to be made to obey rules set by the Kremlin, in particular in the “near abroad”; and regime change is a premeditated threat held over Russia’s head by its main rival, as they see it, the United States.
The outside world might well share the Kremlin view that the Soviet Union collapsed because the changes that Gorbachev initiated were more than its structures could bear, but not the implied belief that the Soviet Union might have prospered without those changes. Several of the underlying causes for that collapse, as perceived in the West, have parallels in today’s Russia: overreliance on the export of natural resources; lack of well targeted investment; excessive defense spending; and nationality issues all spring to mind. So too do demographic, health, and social problems. None of this is to imply that anyone could have known for certain well in advance that the Soviet system would break down in the way that it did, or at the time that it did, any more than it would now be possible to set out a clear road map for the end of Putinism. But the parallels are worth pondering.
The authors (including me) of The Russian Challenge, a Chatham House Report published last month, recommended among other matters that the West should consider the implications of an eventual change in the leadership of Russia. The policies followed by Putin since his return to the Kremlin in May 2012 have greatly narrowed the options for constructive engagement by the West with Russia. There is no sign as yet that he recognizes the need for economic reform. His remarks to the St. Petersburg Forum last month were founded on the disputable claim that Russia was over the worst. An unreformed Russian bureaucracy would anyhow be incapable of delivering liberalizing economic reform, as Herman Gref, the Chairman of Sberbank and once a key Putin adviser, has pointed out. Putin has nothing to say about judicial reform, let alone political changes. He has plenty to say about the need to protect Russia (meaning himself and his immediate collaborators) against the threat of color revolution (meaning popular demonstrations). He has yet to recognize the extent of his failure to impose a stable outcome for his adventures in Ukraine. Russia’s Strong Man is afraid of change.
The Soviet Union fell apart for subjective reasons induced by the feeling that it had lost its way, and its internal justification, not just because of the objective difficulties that it faced. There are parallels with Putin’s Russia today here too. And the Soviet Union was a better organized state than today’s Russia, better able to cope with the long period of Brezhnevite stagnation. Heavy doses of propaganda-induced patriotism will not forever compensate for the overall sense, not least in Moscow, that Russia’s present leaders are concerned in the first place with preserving their power. The general population fear political change, and hope that somehow the good times of Putin’s first two terms will return, but hope delayed cannot last forever. Uncertainty as to the future is a corrosive force in its own right.
The assumption I referred to earlier—that when Putin goes he will be replaced by someone like him—seems to me to be questionable. It is reasonably plausible if it is imagined that he might go of his own volition in the fairly near term. But that is unlikely to happen. If it did, he would have a hand in choosing who took his place and would need to ensure that his successor would protect him. Such a successor would also have to secure the support of Putin’s present entourage. He—or notionally she—would be chosen for his amenability, not his strength. But even so he would have to address the issues in his own way if he were to have a chance of establishing himself as the acknowledged leader of his country. That would mean infighting and change over time, even in the case of Putin leaving office through ill health.
The uncertainty as to what will happen if Putin dies in office is also great. A lot would depend on what had happened between now and then. The constitution has it that the Prime Minister of the day succeeds for the three months leading up to the election of a new President. That would be Medvedev if Putin died tomorrow. A future PM appointed by Putin is unlikely to be more independent minded—even one with his own agenda like Kudrin, with his appeal to Western hopes—would be strictly constrained in office and unlikely to be supported by other members of the ruling cabal.
The scenario whereby Putin is removed by a group of his present supporters looks improbable—and would be difficult to imagine as bringing continuity or stability.
It is no wonder that so many Russians fear that, however Putin goes, a time of troubles will follow soon after.