{"id":26753,"date":"2016-05-24T06:00:36","date_gmt":"2016-05-23T20:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=26753"},"modified":"2016-05-24T08:24:51","modified_gmt":"2016-05-23T22:24:51","slug":"puzzle-putins-insecurity-praetorian-guards-stalinist-blueprints","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/puzzle-putins-insecurity-praetorian-guards-stalinist-blueprints\/","title":{"rendered":"The puzzle of Putin\u2019s insecurity: Praetorian guards, Stalinist blueprints"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Image<\/p>\n

Churchill\u2019s famous line, \u2018Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma,\u2019 refers to Stalin\u2019s totalitarian empire. Taken out of context it reinforces a national myth, etched in every Russian mind by the poet Tyutchev: \u2018Russia defeats the human mind\u2019. That\u2019s claptrap, yet aspects of contemporary Russia seem deeply puzzling.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why should a man who has ruled Russia for almost 17 years and who,<\/span> polls suggest<\/span><\/a>, is trusted by 80% of his compatriots and apparently<\/span> adored by some<\/span><\/a>; who faces no challenge to his authority, and whose political admirers apparently include Xi Jinping, Trump, Le Pen, Farage, Orban, and Tsipras\u2014why should Vladimir Putin repeatedly take steps that suggest he feels acutely threatened?<\/span><\/p>\n

On 5 April, Putin decreed the<\/span> formation of a National Guard<\/span><\/a>, ostensibly to combat terrorism, extremism and organised crime, responsible to him directly, and only to him. The move prompted puzzlement in Russia itself, because Russia already has a Centre for Combatting Terrorism (headed by the FSB, the KGB\u2019s domestic successor); a Special Rapid Response Group (SOBR) against organized crime; 182,000 \u2018internal troops\u2019; and 15-18,000 trained riot-police (OMON).<\/span><\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, Putin already has a personal guard, the FSO. Its size is a state secret but Sweden\u2019s Defence Research Agency estimates its strength at 20\u201330,000. Estimates of the size of the new National Guard, expected to be drawn from the various forces listed above, vary from 180,000 to nearly 430,000. The higher figure, almost half the size of Russia\u2019s army, seems unlikely. Putin appointed his former personal bodyguard and judo-sparring partner, Viktor Zolotov, to head it<\/span><\/p>\n

Some of Putin\u2019s cohort of securocrats\u2014the heads of Russia\u2019s phalanx of security agencies\u2014have a clear explanation for the move: Russia, they say, is under constant and intense attack from \u2018the US and its allies\u2019 who are prosecuting a \u2018hybrid war\u2019 against it. Nikolai Patrushev, the Secretary of Russia\u2019s National Security Council, asserts that US hostility to Russia is not a result of tensions that wax and wane but is \u2018systemic\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

Last month another lieutenant, Alexander Bastrykin, gave an even more fervid explanation in a<\/span> newspaper article<\/span><\/a>. Once Putin\u2019s fellow student in Leningrad, Bastrykin heads the Investigative Committee, an agency set up by Putin in 2011 that, like the National Guard, reports to him and has no equivalent in the liberal democracies. Given that the State Prosecutor achieves a 99% conviction rate, the need for the Investigative Committee was unclear. But Bastrykin acts as a kind of super prosecutor-general prosecuting fictitious cases against Kremlin <\/span>betes noires<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bastrykin has a record of thuggish behaviour. In June 2012 he was compelled\u2014on orders from above\u2014to<\/span> apologise to a journalist<\/span><\/a> after a newspaper editor revealed that <\/span>Bastrykin had kidnapped the journalist, threatened his life and joked that he would take charge of the investigation into his death.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bastrykin\u2019s message to his readers is stark: Russia faces a present and acute danger from crimes of terrorism and extremism that are being fomented and funded by \u2018the US and its allies\u2019, together with the likes of ISIS and al-Qaeda.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Over the past decade Russia\u2026has been subjected to a so-called hybrid war, unleashed by the US and its allies\u2026prosecuted by various means: political, economic, informational and legal,\u2019<\/span> he asserts<\/span><\/a>. So resolute counter-measures are imperative and urgently required.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Enough of pseudo-democracy, dictated by pseudo-liberal values.\u2019 China\u2019s methods in censoring the Internet and controlling the media should be applied in Russia. \u2018Falsifying historical facts and distorting contemporary events\u2019 should become criminal offences. The families of terrorists should have their property confiscated\u2014recalling the collective punishment of the families of \u2018enemies of the people\u2019 under Stalin.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, another puzzle: why would a senior judicial officer, who isn\u2019t a member of the National Security Council, proffer a policy blueprint, and one that seems to imply the President has toyed too long with pseudo-democracy and failed to ensure the country\u2019s security?<\/span><\/p>\n

It seems inconceivable that Bastrykin could have published his chilling diatribe without a nod from the President\u2019s Secretariat, especially as the last time a Putin lieutenant used the media<\/span> to air a grievance<\/span><\/a> he was dismissed. Is the neo-Stalinist manifesto by the country\u2019s most senior \u2018legal officer\u2019, in a newspaper aimed at the elite and the new middle class, a warning from the top that any disloyalty would be extremely unwise?<\/span><\/p>\n

As well as decreeing a new praetorian guard, Putin appears to be reshuffling his top echelon, rusticating one of his longest serving lieutenants, Viktor Ivanov, who first recruited Putin to the KGB, and abolishing the Federal Drug Control Service that Ivanov headed<\/span>.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Given that politics everywhere is about power and money; that in Russia both depend ultimately on Putin\u2019s favour; and that even the Russian security agencies must compete for fast shrinking funds, the article smacks of a bid by Bastrykin to preserve his job and standing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Presumably the explanation is some or all of the above.<\/span><\/p>\n

What\u2019s plain is that Russia\u2019s present supremo perceives his interests being served by mobilising the populace with the spectre of \u2018the US and its allies\u2019 waging an undeclared war against the Russian people and collaborating with Daesh and al-Qaeda in planning acts of extremism and terrorism in Russia.<\/span><\/p>\n

Whether Putin and his inner circle\u2019s sleep really is disturbed by fears of foreign attack or subversion from within remains hidden. Setting up another and large internal security force, and authorising a call for overtly Stalinist methods against a putative new generation of enemies of the people, looks like paranoia. But for Putin such measures presumably amount to sound governance.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Churchill\u2019s famous line, \u2018Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma,\u2019 refers to Stalin\u2019s totalitarian empire. Taken out of context it reinforces a national myth, etched in every Russian mind by the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":435,"featured_media":26754,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[163,932,744],"class_list":["post-26753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-russia","tag-security","tag-vladimir-putin"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe puzzle of Putin\u2019s insecurity: Praetorian guards, Stalinist blueprints | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/puzzle-putins-insecurity-praetorian-guards-stalinist-blueprints\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The puzzle of Putin\u2019s insecurity: Praetorian guards, Stalinist blueprints | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Churchill\u2019s famous line, \u2018Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma,\u2019 refers to Stalin\u2019s totalitarian empire. 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