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Many westerners hope that sanctions will force Putin from office, but if Vladimir Putin does leave, who would replace him?
Soviet-era apparatchiks have long abandoned the public sphere. Mikhail Gorbachev is still widely despised for dissolving the Soviet Union. Moreover, the rise of the Orthodox Church has turned communism into a toxic anachronism. Even Evgeni Primakov, who was a successful prime minister in 1998, is heard from only rarely.
Figures from Boris Yeltsin's "wild 90s" have been systematically caricatured by Putin's propaganda as hucksters. Long excluded from appearing on television, their names are hazy for millennials. Irina Khakamada, at one time a presidential hopeful, has abandoned politics. Gary Kasparov, currently residing in New York, is brilliant but erratic: he was once a prominent proponent of the crack-pot "New Chronology" history. Boris Nemtsov was a former prime minister and was at one time considered Yeltsin's heir, but performed abysmally when elections were conducted fairly. His long years in the political wilderness ― he currently serves as a representative for the backwater region of Yaroslavl ― have made his analysis trenchant. Nonetheless, he is read mainly by foreigners. Nemtsov's quarrels with his comrades, Vladimir Milov and Vladimir Ryzhkov, have left the opposition in splinters. Absurdly, each man fronts his own party.
Under Putin's repression, the torch was never passed to a younger generation. The passionate Sergei Udaltsov is now in prison. The articulate Alexei Navalny has weaved together liberalism and mild jingoism. While decrying corruption, he warns of dark-skinned immigrants and declares that Crimea should be Russian. By ensnaring him in legal traps, the Kremlin, often exploiting surrogates such as the venerated members of the liberal party Yabloko, has skillfully rebranded Navalny as both a throwback to the 90s and a crypto-fascist.
All outsiders face four difficulties. One, in the event of a Putin exit, they will be perceived as western puppets. In today's hyper-nationalized atmosphere, this would be fatal. Two, their natural allies are students. Unfortunately, the days of the Tsarist student movements are long gone; the passivity of Russian students is notorious. Three, much of the ‘opposition' is under the thumb of the Russian intelligence community: the Liberal Democrats and the Communists have become Kremlin-controlled parties. Finally, the elites will never back the opposition. Lacking any kind of recognized property rights or foreign backing, the oligarchs are defenseless. Any hint of defection from ‘the Putin majority,' is ruthlessly punished. Detested at home, the oligarchs are viewed as illegitimate abroad. That Russia's richest man, Alisher Usmanov, would emerge from the shadows to aid the opposition is hard to believe.
Although by law Dmitri Medvedev would technically be first in line for presidential succession, he has never been able to convert his virtual authority to real power. As an ornamental president, he was adored by gullible western pundits, while loathed by citizens for his empty policies, such as time-zone alternations. Putin, moreover, has a habit of picking nonthreatening formal seconds, for example Mikhail Fradkov and Viktor Zubkov. Surely, this was shown with his promotion of Medvedev. That Medvedev's candidacy is fundamentally flawed is also suggested by denunciations pronounced by such varied authorities as Yevgenia Albats, Yuri Luzhkov and Alexei Kudrin.
Other insiders would face serious problems in claiming Putin's mantle. Alexander Lukashenko, who at one time sought the presidency of a untied Russia-Belorussia, is now viewed more skeptically by nationalists after his image was sullied by the pro-Putin media during trade disputes. Putin's business allies ― Gennady Timchenko, the Rotenberg brothers, and others ― prefer obscurity. They face hostility from the Russian security forces who seek a "nationalization" of the elites. As was seen in the downfall of the Moscow oligarch Yelena Baturina, without political protection, cronies quickly encounter challenges from competing commercial elites. Putin's lieutenants, the siloviki Igor Sechin and Sergie Chemezov, are more abhorred in the West than Putin. Their own ‘patriotic' commercial dealings, moreover, have garnered formidable internal enemies. For example, Sechin, as head of Rosneft, is opposed by business rival Gazprom, as well as by oligarchs connected with transportation. The internal struggles between the business and security factions of the Putin elite have resulted in copious leaks of lurid material.
In the event of an abrupt Putin exit, my own bet would be on Dmitri Rogozin. I well remember his powerhouse appearances on freewheeling TV debate shows during the first years of Putin's presidency. Now in Putin's cabinet, his charisma has surely influenced Russia's aggressive policies. Rogozin has strong backing from the military-industrial complex. (Minister of Defense Sergei Shoygu, although often mentioned as a potential successor, lacks this magnetism.) Igor Girkin is a dark horse. His tales of exploits in "Novorossiya" evoke a Lermontov-like hero. Against Rogozin and Girkin is a chronicle of failed attempts to seize power by such army men as the Decembrists, the White generals, Georgy Zhukov, Lev Rokhlin, and Alexander Lebed.
Putin's replacement would confront other problems. The cadres running the state machine are tied to the reviled ruling party ‘United Russia.' Putin, however, insists he is "above the parties." This leaves the bureaucracy standing like a house of cards, held together only by Putin. Worse yet, there is no insider, a Talleyrand, capable of shepherding a transition from Putinism to democracy. Finally, the task of wedding Russia's notoriously fragmented fractions behind one ideology is Herculean.
The forces that brought the obscure Putin to power were unique to the period. Putin was supported by the key oligarchs, in particular Boris Berezovsky (who feared anarchy), by ex-KGB comrades, by the financial community (which connected Putin to the pioneer privatizer Anatoly Sobchak), by Western elites (who valued Putin's pragmatic end to Prime Minister Primakov's support of Serbia), and nationalist voters (that loved Putin's rhetorical flourishes during a renewed Chechnya campaign). Fifteen years later, it's hard to imagine these forces realigning behind a replacement for Putin.
Chris Monday is an associate professor at Dongseo University.
