Perspectives

Russia's Poisonous Politics

Political power struggle may explain

By Sunthosh Madireddi
From the February 2007 Print Edition

Russia, in its revolutionary days, was envisioned to be a new political landmass emerging as a shining red star on a hill. However, Russia has notably shrunk from the continental giant it once was claimed dominion over. Western oceans have risen considerably on Russia’s shore leaving but an island in its wake. With more and more former Soviet republics enlisting under the NATO banner, a circumvented Russia would like the international community to believe it has changed, but the world should not be fooled.   

At first, Russia seemed truly genuine about its attempts to liberalize politically and economically. The 1993 constitution erected a representative government that brokered a power-sharing relationship between the bicameral Federal Assembly and the Russian president. The balance of power is seen as a key barometer for the health of Russian democracy as it is a fledgling democracy attempting to free itself from the yoke of centralized government control. Convinced of the vision and promise embodied within the 1993 constitution, the international community decided to open up a decade-long carrot buffet, believing wholeheartedly that Russia had changed for the better.  

The chief carrot was the acceptance of Russia into the G8 conference of leading industrialized nations. The United States stood as good waiter at Russia’s table, waiting for a return on its investment in Russia’s future. The Russian government, however, found a better friend than the United States and other members of the G8: a friend that charged zero interest and a friend that would write categorical checks in good times and in bad.

The friend turned out to be an oil market that was in high demand in the latter part of the 1990s. Russia’s prodigious oil supplies not only functioned as a crutch for the Russian economy but also as a coercive political tool to dissuade opponents and entice potential allies. The oil market gave the Russian oligarchy an adequate power currency to once again centralize power without heed of foreign or domestic outrage. However, there were select few in Russia who refused to bite the state bait. What would become of them in the new Russia?  

In the days of the incipient Soviet state, no dissident was ever forgotten by the power brokers in the Kremlin. The most notable example was Leon Trotsky, who jockeyed against Joseph Stalin in a power struggle that surfaced following the death of Lenin. Trotsky emerged at the short end of the stick and was forced to go into exile in Mexico where he was later tracked down and assassinated with an ice pick to the skull. The last decade has brought about new changes in Russian society. Flags have been altered, anthems revised, and official names edited. Some things haven’t changed, however, except that these days ice picks have been replaced by Polonium-210.

Enter Alexander Litvinenko. Litvinenko became an agent of the KGB in 1986. In 1991, Litvinenko was promoted to the Central Staff of the FSB (the sister organization of the Soviet KGB). Yet in 1999 Litvinenko fell out of favor with the head of the FSB and was arrested on charges of disobeying his duties and was later released in exchange for a pledge to remain in Russia. Shortly thereafter, Litvinenko fled to London, where he was granted political asylum by the British government in 2001. Litvinenko soon became a crusader against his former bosses in the Kremlin, using the pen and paper to illuminate to the rest of the world the dark inner workings of Russian power politics.  

Litvinenko’s main allegation against his former colleagues in the FSB was levied in 2001, when he accused them of orchestrating the bombings of Russian apartment blocks in 1999, which killed 300 people and were officially blamed on Chechen terrorists. On November 1, 2006, Litvinenko suddenly fell ill and passed away on November 23. The medical report concluded that Litvinenko had been poisoned by radioactive Polonium. According to a statement made by Litvinenko on his deathbed, he charged Putin with using the FSB and a host of other Russian intelligence agencies to carry out the order of assassination. The accusation is not entirely outlandish when several factors are considered.  

The first is the rarity of the poison involved: Polonium-210 belongs to a group of radioactive poisons that can be used to kill effectively and silently. The poison, once inhaled or ingested, travels through the body quickly and requires only a millionth of a gram to trigger a deadly dose. The isotope occurs rarely in nature but is generated in large amounts in nuclear reactors each year. The bottom line is that access to such a rare poison requires a cadre of well-equipped nuclear scientists with full knowledge of the poison’s means of delivery and transport.

The second reason such an accusation is not outlandish is because Litvinenko’s death is part of a sequence of recent murders that included the killing of the crusader journalist Anna Politkovskaya and the poisoning of the Western-backed Ukranian presidential candidate Victor Yushchenko during his campaign in 2004.

There are two theories out there as to what such an assassination means for the political situation in the Kremlin. One theory places Vladimir Putin in the eye of the storm, accusing him of directly utilizing a string of political assassinations to consolidate power in the Kremlin and extend the Russian sphere of influence beyond its borders. Putin has had a storied past of exploiting devastating tragedies in order to garner national support for further consolidation of presidential power. The most famous case was the Beslan school siege of 2004, in which Chechen terrorists took a Russian school hostage leading to the deaths of 344 civilians, 186 of them children. On the heel of the devastating attack, new security measures were imposed and political reforms implemented. More than 10,000 Russians were detained in Moscow for not producing sufficient documentation. Additionally, governors of the Russian districts, which were previously directly elected, would now be appointed at behest of the president.

The other theory places the blame not on Putin but on his inner circle of potential presidential successors. Putin is widely believed to step down in 2008 and it can be argued that the recent mayhem is a sign that competition for the vacant seat has already begun. The Litvinenko assassination might very well have been an attempt from within the Kremlin to undermine Putin’s legitimacy and force him to an early exit. Whichever theory is most accurate, it is clear that Russia still remains a country in which the individual is a pawn of the state and a country in which power is consolidated in the hands of a select few. Following the Litvinenko incident, we can safely conclude Putin’s Russia isn’t exactly the Soviet Union, nor is it the anarchical state governed by Boris Yelstin. It is just as it sounds; it is Putin’s Russia and no one else’s.

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