Putin's militocracy? An alternative interpretation of Siloviki in contemporary Russian politics

Abstract

This article challenges the perception of the rising numbers of siloviki in Russian politics as a conscious strategy and expression of a more authoritarian policy direction pursued by President Putin. Contextualising the phenomenon within the framework of the system of elite recruitment in contemporary Russia, and engaging in a micro-level study of individual siloviki, the article argues that the role of these figures is more modest than often asserted and the possibility of a coordinated ‘siloviki project’ is unlikely.

Notes

¹This article is part of two larger projects on civil – military relations and securitisation in contemporary Russia. From November 2001 until June 2003 semi-structured interviews were conducted in Moscow with 38 respondents, not all of which were used in this particular article. The sampling of respondents was purposive in choosing specific individuals representing a broad variety of political and institutional views and the interviews were aimed at identifying the subjective beliefs of the respondents, seeking to evaluate potentially competing discourses explaining the role, activities and influence of siloviki and the meaning given by the respondents to the phenomenon under investigation. The three major groups approached for interview were political actors (predominantly State Duma deputies with and without a force-structure background, representing all major political parties represented in the parliament at the time); journalists (defence analysts and political commentators writing for a variety of newspapers representing different ideological and institutional points of view); and analysts (academic and policy-oriented analysts writing on civil – military relations and contemporary Russian politics in state institutions, academies and independent think tanks). A similar approach to the siloviki is taken in Bacon and Renz (2006).

²Author's interview with Valerii Ostanin, Moscow, 6 December 2001.

³Author's interview with Aleksei Salmin, Moscow, 27 November 2001.

⁴Author's interview with Yurii Korgunyuk, Moscow, 22 November 2001.

⁵Author's interview with Vadim Solov'ev, Moscow, 15 November 2001.

⁶The names and short biographies of 47 individuals were published on the website of the presidential administration in July 2005 (available at: http://www.kremlin.ru, accessed 8 May 2006). They included the head and two deputy heads of the administration, eight presidential aides, the seven presidential plenipotentiaries in the federal districts, 10 presidential advisers and 19 heads of sub-units of the presidential administration, including the president's press secretary, head of protocol and representatives in the lower and upper houses of parliament.

⁷There has been repeated speculation that Igor Sechin, a deputy head of the administration, has a KGB background. However, whilst the Kremlin website (available at: http://www.kremlin.ru, accessed 8 May 2006) lists the career backgrounds in a force structure of the individuals named in this article, Sechin's biography does not indicate such an occupation. Instead, the presumption of his KGB background appears to be based on rumours circulated in the press that he might have been on KGB missions during his time as an interpreter [see, for instance, Profil 17 December 2001; Vedemosti 20 March 2002 and Novaia gazeta (2003, 50, July)]. Sechin worked with Putin in Sobchak's administration from 1991 to 1996.

⁸This figure was correct in July 2005 in accordance with the official governmental website (available at: www.government.ru, accessed 8 May 2006). It includes the Prime Minister and the deputy Prime Minister as well as the heads of Russia's 16 federal ministries. Due to his previous employment as head of the Federal Tax Police and membership in the Security Council, some analysts have labelled Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov a silovik. However, he was appointed to these posts as a civilian and can thus not be considered a politician with a military/security background (see footnote 1 for a definition of siloviki).

⁹Boris Gryzlov was appointed Interior Minister as a civilian. Having worked as an electronic engineer and having gained a PhD in political science before entering the Duma in 1999, he is not a silovik, that is, a politician with a career background in one of Russia's force structures.

¹⁰General of the Army Viktor Yerin from 1993 to 1995, General of the Army Anatolii Kulikov from 1995 to 1998.

¹¹Author's interview with Andrei Ryabov, Moscow, 22 May 2003.

¹²Author's interview with Vladislav Shurygin, Moscow, 11 January 2002.

¹³Author's interview with Sergei Mulin, Moscow, 15 November 2001.

¹⁴Viktor Kazantsev was replaced by Vladimir Yakovlev in March 2004, who was in turn replaced by Dmitrii Kozak in September 2004.

¹⁵Biographical details in this article are drawn from a variety of sources. A large collection of biographies of the Russian federal and regional elite is available via the Russian-language documentary archive available at: http://www.grankin.ru, accessed 8 May 2006.

¹⁶In Janowitz's view the characterisation of the military professional as a ‘heroic leader’, as ‘the warrior type, the mounted officer who embodies the martial spirit’, in the modern era was increasingly challenged by the importance of the ‘military manager’, whose major concern was the scientific and rational conduct of war, and the ‘military engineer’, maintaining and running the increasingly sophisticated machinery of warfare. Janowitz found that military professionals increasingly thought of themselves as members of specific skill groups, rather than as a part of a distinct group of military professionals, because of their high level of specialisation in different skills. He pointed out the deteriorating impact on group coherence of the highly specialised skills and wide range of tasks fulfilled by members of the military profession in the modern era (Janowitz 1960, pp. 7, 21 – 22). As a challenge to the Huntingtonian perception of a universal ‘military mind’ (Huntington 1957, pp. 79 – 97) uniting all military professionals this was an important analytical and theoretical adjustment. Janowitz's work among military sociologists remains relevant and has been developed further by Charles Moskos, John Allen Williams and David Segal (2000, p. 19). In their view the ‘heroic leader’ as the dominant type of military professional in the Cold-War era has been challenged further by the ascendancy of the ‘soldier-scholar’ (attaining advanced civilian degrees) and the ‘soldier-statesman’ (officers skilled in handling the media and adept in international diplomacy).

¹⁷Author's interview with Vyacheslav Izmailov, Moscow, 10 December 2001.

¹⁸1993 – 1994 deputy director of the publishing house Russkaya Kniga; 1994 – 1995 deputy chairman of the Press Committee; 1995 – 1997 deputy minister for nationalities and federal relations; 1997 – 1999 head of the information and public relations directorate of the MVD. Biography available at: http://www.grankin.ru, accessed 8 May 2006.

¹⁹This is according to Mikhail Frolov, a former instructor of Vladimir Putin in the Andropov Red Banner Institute (Academy of Foreign Intelligence). Quoted in Putin (2000, p. 53).

²⁰Detailed biography available at: http://www.grankin.ru, accessed 8 May 2006.

²¹Thomas DeWaal, contribution to Johnson's Russia List published on 12 May 1999; available at: www.cdi.org/russia/Johnson/3282.html##10, accessed 8 May 2006.

²²Author's interview with Eduard Vorob'ev, Moscow, 11 January 2002.

²³This approach was criticised in Sakwa (2004a).

²⁴Such a simplified approach was criticised by Gordon Bennett (2002, p. 4).

²⁵According to Olga Kryshtanovskaya ‘this status implies that an officer is posted to a position into an outsider department, but his wage is retained as well as the privileges from the “parent” organisation’ (Kryshtanovskaya 2003a).

²⁶Author's interview with Mikhail Grishankov, Moscow, 23 October 2002.

²⁷The work of Olga Kryshtanovskaya, for example, has been widely published and discussed in the Russian press. See, for instance, Kryshtanovskaya (2002, 2003b, 2004); Kostyukov (2003), an interview with Kryshtanovskaya; Oreshkin (2003); Deich (2003); and Yaroshevskii (2004), an interview with Kryshtanovskaya.

²⁸Such an approach, exploring the security aspects of Russia's policies in different areas of domestic politics and further investigating the role of the force structures in Russian politics, is taken from Bacon and Renz (2006).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bettina Renz

This research was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC); the author would like to thank the ESRC for its support. The term siloviki denotes personnel in the Russian force structures (silovye struktury), that is, in Russia's armed forces and uniformed services. In recent years the term siloviki has acquired a more precise meaning, describing politicians with a force-structure background, who have come to power under the leadership of Vladimir Putin. There are 10 institutionally distinct force structures in contemporary Russia. These are the Ministry of Defence, the Interior Ministry (MVD), the Ministry for Emergency Situations (MChS), the Justice Ministry (Federal Prison Service—FSIN), the Federal Security Service (FSB), the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), the Federal Anti-Drugs Service (FSN), the Federal Guards Service (FSO), the Federal Courier Service (GFS), and the Agency for Special Programmes under the President (GUSP).