'..Putinism may face its strongest challenge on the economic front from declining energy prices, Western sanctions and domestic distortions. The silovarchy still will work to enrich itself, but will not have sufficient resources to aid the broader Russian population which constitutes Putin's political base..'<blockquote>'In the late 19th century 15 insurance companies congregated on Great Lubyanka Street, prospering as the great czarist despotism entered the industrial age. The Rossia agency, one of Russia's largest, completed an office building in 1900. Excess space was turned into apartments and leased out to retailers selling everything from books to beds.
The building was profitable, but 14 years later in his worst single decision the foolish czar led his country into the abyss of World War I. In 1917 he was ousted by a moderate revolution, which in turn was overthrown by the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov Lenin. They nationalized insurance companies along with much of the rest of the economy, and switched Russia's capital from Petrograd to Moscow. As a result, the Rossia building at No. 2 Great Lubyanka Street became the new regime's property. And the secret police, known as the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage, or Cheka, evicted the rest of the tenants and settled in.
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The first Cheka head was Felix Dzerzhinsky, a Russian Pole born in 1877. He conducted the infamous "Red Terror," what he called a "fight to the finish" against the Bolsheviks' political opponents. As part of that campaign he personally approved the torture and murder of thousands. He wrote: "Kill without investigation, so that they will be afraid." And the agency did so. Of course, not every prisoner was murdered, so the first concentration camps were established in 1918. In a testament to Dzerzhinsky's effectiveness the Nazis modeled their repressive security apparatus, most notably the Gestapo, after the Cheka.
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..The Cheka became the GPU, OGPU, NKVD and later the KGB. After the latter was dissolved the building went to the Border Guard Service, later absorbed by the Federal Security Service (FSB), responsible for foreign intelligence..
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..diehard communists did not take the KGB's cosmetic demise well. Alexei Kondaurov, one of the KGB's most senior officials left inside Lubyanka after the failure of the coup, watched the attack on Dzerzhinsky's statue and, he related later, felt betrayed, thinking: "I will prove to you that your victory will be short-lived." Among the half million KGB operatives who likely felt the same way was Putin, who had resigned only the day before.
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Anne Applebaum,
Washington Post columnist, argued "that Putin -- and, more importantly, most of the people around him -- is deeply steeped in the culture of Andropov's KGB." In her view they are[n't] modernizers but authoritarians, who "believe that the rulers of the state must exert careful control over the life of the nation." Putin has said that "There is no such thing as a former Chekist."
..Today one-fourth of senior bureaucrats are members of the security forces; three-fourths of senior bureaucrats have some affiliation with the latter. The result, wrote UCLA's Daniel Treisman, is a "silovarchy" in which "silovarchs" replaced the economic oligarchs who had emerged during the flawed transition from communism to capitalism under Boris Yeltsin.
..Overall, explained the
Economist: "Men from the FSB and its sister organizations control the Kremlin, the government, the media and large parts of the economy -- as well as the military and security forces."
Although the economic consequences of this system vary, the political impact uniformly is bad, reinforcing the worst temptations of power. Explained Treisman: "the temptation to use secret service tools and techniques predisposes such regimes toward authoritarian politics." That certainly describes Putin today. Nevertheless, he retains the appearance of democratic politics and capitalist economics to improve his regime's image.
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..Putinism may face its strongest challenge on the economic front from declining energy prices, Western sanctions and domestic distortions. The silovarchy still will work to enrich itself, but will not have sufficient resources to aid the broader Russian population which constitutes Putin's political base..
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When change comes, it will be critical for Russia's new leaders to eliminate the Chekist mindset. In contrast, Lubyanka should be preserved, perhaps as a museum about tyranny. We all know George Santayana's famous saying that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. No one should want to repeat the KGB experience.'
- Doug Bandow,
Lubyanka Runs the New Russia, Much Like the Old Soviet Union, December 26, 2014</blockquote>
Context<blockquote>
'..a KGB-planned operation directed at seizing power with the goal of privatizing state property..''..Lenin destroyed freedom of the press..''..[Putin] has created a military-industrial-political-criminal complex..'</blockquote>