When Yeltsin told Putin in the summer of 1999 that he had chosen him to be his successor and Putin had to prepare for the presidential elections of 2000, Putin was upset. “I don’t like election campaigns,” he said. “I really don’t. I don’t know how to run them, and I don’t like them.”[1] This exclamation would, in fact, become the profession of faith of Putin’s regime, because the realization of Putin’s imperial project was dependent on two conditions. The first of these was the unhampered continuation of his regime in order to be able to realize his long-term projects. The second condition was the necessity of upholding a formal democratic façade to facilitate the acceptance of his regime in the West, thus avoiding the West mobilizing against the emergence of a new “Russian danger.” This meant that he would strictly adhere to the letter (though not the spirit) of the constitution. He would maintain the external characteristics of a democratic regime, such as elections and a free press, but at the same time he would do anything to avoid an alternation of power from taking place, which is the litmus proof of democratic governance. The repression of opposition forces in Russia, therefore, was considered a necessary condition for the continuation of his regime. Winning this “internal war” was for Putin a precondition for winning his first war: the reconstruction of the empire. How Putin conducted this “internal war” we will analyze in this section.
A One-Party State with Four Parties?
Each time visitors from the West questioned the reality of Russian political pluralism, Putin reacted with visible irritation. During the Valdai conference in September 2009, for instance, a Western participant asked: “To what extent do you think the Western model for political and economic development would suit Russia? Or do you think Russia needs to adopt some other model, which would better suit local historical, geographical and geopolitical realities?” Putin answered—not amused—in a brusque tone: “Russia’s fundamental political and economic system is fully in line with international standards. If we are discussing the political system, I am referring to free election(s) and (an) effective multi-party system.”[2] Apparently, the Russian leadership did not consider reestablishing a one-party system to be a sensible strategy. The historical precedents—not only in fascist countries, but also the experience with the communist party in the former Soviet Union—had too negative an image.
East German Communist “Pluralism”:
A Model for Putin?
The former communist regime legitimized the existing one-party system by referring to the emergence of a “classless society” in which the old capitalist class cleavages would no longer exist. Interestingly, even in the former communist bloc there were still some countries, such as Czechoslovakia, Poland, and the German Democratic Republic, which did not follow the Soviet example, but maintained (quasi-)pluralist systems. In East Germany, for instance, alongside the SED, the official communist party, there existed four other political “parties.”[3] However, these parties were not allowed to compete with each other or with the communist party, nor to participate in elections as independent bodies. Candidates from all parties appeared on a prefabricated list of the so-called “National Front”[4] under the aegis of the communist party, and in the (obligatory) elections the only act expected from voters was to throw this list in the ballot box.[5] Putin lived and worked as a KGB agent in Dresden in the German Democratic Republic between 1985 and 1991. Asked about his activities there, he answered that he “looked for information about political parties, the tendencies inside these parties, their leaders. I examined today’s leaders and the possible leaders of tomorrow and the promotion of people to certain posts in the parties and the government.”[6] Putin might have been impressed by the astuteness of East Germany’s pseudo-pluralism.
