Another interesting resemblance between Putin’s and Mussolini’s systems was the diarchy
at the top. Mussolini was prime minister and Duce, but until the armistice in 1943 Italy was a monarchy and Mussolini had to deal with
King Victor Emmanuel III, the Italian head of state. In Mussolini’s case this diarchy
was not of his own making. It was forced on him by the specificity of the Italian
situation. After the election of Dmitry Medvedev as Russian president in March 2008
and Putin’s appointment to prime minister, there was created, in Russia also, a diarchy,
called the tandem. But unlike the Italian situation, where the diarchy was an unintended consequence
of a historical situation, the diarchy in Russia was the result of a deliberate choice. In the beginning there was a lot of speculation about the reason for this construction.
Some Western observers obstinately wanted to believe—even as late as the fall of 2011—that
this diarchy did have some real substance. It did not. The reason for Putin installing
the tandem was to guarantee Putin’s iron grip on power for at least another decade.
The second reason was to hide this manipulated usurpation of state power behind a
smokescreen of formal legality. The Russian constitution did not permit a president
to run for a third term. Putin easily could have changed the constitution, but he
chose to step down and leave his place to his young cabinet chief Dmitry Medvedev.
Medvedev was the ideal choice for Putin. He had no political experience, no apparent
power ambitions, nor an independent power base in society, and he was, moreover, totally
devoted to his boss. Playing the game of “the constitutional president,” who “scrupulously
applied the existing legal rules,” Putin planned to become a “legal” ruler who would
remain in office longer than any of his foreign colleagues.[51] Putin served as a prime minister under Yeltsin for almost five months, was subsequently
president for more than eight years, remained prime minister for another four years,
which already makes altogether twelve and a half years. During Medvedev’s presidency
the presidential term for the next president was extended from four to six years.
After his reelection on March 4, 2012, Putin had, therefore, theoretically the possibility
of remaining at the apex of the Russian power system until 2024, which would make
for a reign of almost a quarter of a century. This would bring the total time span
of his reign close to that of an average Russian tsar (Alexander II, for instance
reigned from 1855 to 1881 and Nicholas II from 1894 to 1917). It even comes close
to the almost thirty years’ reign of Putin’s admired geopolitical genius, Joseph Stalin.[52]
Notes
1.
Quoted in Boris Yeltsin, Midnight Diaries (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000), 330.
2.
“Prime Minister Vladimir Putin Met with Members of the Sixth Valdai Discussion Club,”
Ria Novosti (September 19, 2009). http://en.rian.ru/valdai_op/20090914/156117965-print.html.
3.
These were the Christian-Democratic Union, the Liberal-Democratic Party of Germany,
the National-Democratic Party of Germany, and the Democratic Peasants Party of Germany.
4.
Apart from the political parties, also representatives of communist mass organizations
(youth and women’s organizations, the communist trade union FDGB, etc.) were also
on the National Front’s list.
5.
