Who will succeed Vladimir Putin if and when he falls? Will things get better or worse? Those are the intriguing questions posed by Benjamin Bidder, Moscow correspondent for the German news weekly Der Spiegel.
Bidder concludes that the democrats have little chance of replacing Putin and that his successor is likely to be worse.
It takes little fantasy to imagine Putin’s political end. He cannot be voted out of office like his friend Gerhard Schröder. Two scenarios are possible: either the current political elite in the Kremlin installs a successor or the Russians get rid of Putin and his minions….
And then what? The fear is that someone could seize control of the Kremlin who thinks and acts more radically than Putin. The president created the preconditions of such a possibility with his own failed policies. If the Kremlin insiders want to find a successor, they will have to recruit him from the immediate circle of the current president. But Putin has reinforced hard-liners and pushed out the liberals.
The revolution scenario is no less disheartening. Power could be seized by forces from the extreme right and left. The boundaries between both are vague in Russia, as the name of such groups as the “National Bolsheviks” suggests.
Given his analysis, Bidder’s conclusion is logical:
Putin’s fall would be no solution for Russia or for Europe…. What follows therefrom? There is only the choice between bad alternatives. NATO must therefore discuss arming itself, if only to protect itself against what may come after Putin. But the West must also turn to Moscow as soon as possible, speak with it, and propose compromises. Not because Putin deserves it, but because Russia’s isolation creates more problems than solutions.
Unfortunately, Bidder’s analysis of who may succeed Putin is at best flawed, at worst dead wrong.
First, it’s premised on the view that it’s possible to be worse than Putin. That’s true, if you think of him as a run-of-the mill authoritarian. That’s not true, or not as true, if you think of him as a full-fledged fascist who has transformed Russia into an anti-modern, repressive, belligerent, imperialist rogue state.
Second, it’s theoretically possible for an even greater fascist to replace Putin. But how likely is it that Aleksandr Dugin or Vladimir Zhirinovsky would fill that role? Not at all. And if Putin’s replacement comes from within his inner circle, he’s likely to be a hard-liner who comes to power under conditions that militate against an even greater radicalism and fascism. Remember: when extremely powerful and charismatic dictators leave office, they always leave an institutional mess and a power vacuum behind them. Power struggles invariably result, precisely because there are no rules for finding a successor, and contenders for power have to woo support. In other words, Putin’s successor will first have to spend some time—months? years?—consolidating power before he can promote his own agenda.
Third, don’t discount the democrats. For one thing, Viktor Yanukovych’s downfall should, if nothing else, caution us against assuming that seemingly powerless political forces really are powerless. For another, the Russian democrats managed to organize massive demonstrations in Moscow just a few years ago. Putin’s supporters have never come out in equivalent numbers, and if the democrats establish themselves as a strong political force in the capital, that may suffice to tip the balance of succession in their favor. Finally, in times of crisis, the “street” often has greater influence on politics than the elites. Bidder mistakenly assumes that the insiders who make policy today will make policy after Putin leaves. Don’t be so sure.
Neither Russian, nor Soviet, nor world history supports Bidder’s view that bad dictators are followed by worse ones. Russian czars and czarinas came and went, with bad succeeding good, good succeeding bad, and mediocrities succeeding both. Soviet history is even less supportive of Bidder’s claims. True, the awful Lenin was succeeded by the dreadful Stalin, but Stalin was followed by the pretty good Khrushchev, the pretty good Khrushchev was replaced by the worse (though by no means Stalinist) Brezhnev, who in turn was replaced by the pretty good Gorbachev. And Gorbachev, after he fell in 1991, handed over power to the not bad Yeltsin, who was replaced by the awful Putin.
Last but not least, consider world experience. Who was worse—the Shah or the Ayatollah? Papa Doc Duvalier or Baby Doc Duvalier? It’s a toss-up. But there are very many examples—from Greece to Spain to Portugal to Brazil to Argentina to China—of lousy dictators being replaced with decent democrats or less lousy dictators.
In the final analysis, Bidder’s assessment amounts to an unwitting justification of dictatorial rule, repeating the self-serving claim that all dictators make: après moi, le déluge. In fact, world experience and both Russian and Soviet history suggest that Russia is likely to experience a better future if and when Putin finally goes. Getting rid of him, as quickly as possible, is a bet worth making—both by Russia and the West.
