It’s probably axiomatic that no one gets to the top without fierce ambition, especially the top of the heap of Russian politics. But Putin himself could hardly have dared set his sights as high as he in fact rose, nor imagined how swift that ascent would be. A year after moving to Moscow he had become deputy chief of staff to the president; the next year he would be named director of the FSB, the successor to the KGB; and in the following year, 1999, he would be appointed prime minister, a post he did not hold for very long because, during his annual December 31 speech to the nation, President Yeltsin shocked the country by announcing that he was retiring prematurely, with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to take the his place effective immediately.
Even for a man of ferocious ambition and killer instincts to rise from unemployed bureaucrat to president in the space of some three and a half years would be a dizzying achievement, but for a man of no particular outward ambition it assumes the sheen of legend. How did it happen?
First, neither Putin’s uniqueness nor the scale and speed of his rise should be exaggerated. Stalin, Gorbachev, and Yeltsin all seemed to come from nowhere. And as vice mayor of St. Petersburg, Putin had been the number two man in Russia’s number two city, not exactly nowhere. Still, it’s a long way from there to the Kremlin.
Putin had already caught the Kremlin’s eye when amazing Boris Berezovsky by not asking him for a bribe. In refusing that bribe, Putin won a reputation for both integrity and something worth more than integrity in the Russian political situation—the brains to know which bribes to take and which not to. Berezovsky was a man of great power behind the scenes, a “kingmaker”—better to have his respect than his rubles.
The Russia of the late nineties was ruled by “the Family,” meaning Yeltsin’s own family and a few others, like Berezovsky, who were allowed into that inner circle. Among the members of the Family none was more important than Yeltsin’s daughter Tatyana. At one point she needed an apartment in St. Petersburg. The one that would be perfect for her was, unfortunately, being occupied by some important Americans and other foreigners. Putin made the problem go away.
When Sobchak lost the race for mayor of St. Petersburg, Putin was offered the chance to stay on as deputy mayor. But he had pledged not to if Sobchak was not elected, and he kept his word. Sobchak was not important to the Kremlin, but Putin’s reflexive loyalty was duly noted.
In Moscow it looked like Putin was fated to forever remain the number two man, distinguished by his loyalty and ability, but without the drive and charisma to reach the top of any one governmental body, not to mention the government itself. He would be the deputy chief of the Kremlin’s Property Department, then Boris Yeltsin’s deputy chief of staff, and, later, one of three first deputy prime ministers in August 1999.
But in the meantime Putin had actually headed something. To the immense chagrin of his former colleagues, between July 1998 and August 1999, Putin served as director of what would soon be called the Federal Security Bureau, the FSB. That organization is often described as the successor to the KGB, which is not entirely accurate. Until the fall of the USSR the KGB was like a combination, at the minimum, of the FBI and the CIA. After the fall, those two functions were separated, and now everything connected with foreign intelligence is handled by the SVR, the Foreign Intelligence Service.
Putin claims to have been in no hurry to return to the closed, arcane world of the security services. He would not make any dramatic shake-ups during his tenure, but two developments of significance would occur in that year and a month. For the first time he tasted the pleasure of being the boss. Of course, there were still a few people above him, but it was a foretaste of the Kremlin, where, as he put it, “I control everybody.”[176]
The second development was more tied to specific events. The prosecutor general, Yury Skuratov, had launched a corruption investigation that was coming too close to Yeltsin and the Family for comfort. Ruin and prison were among the possibilities they were facing. Suddenly in March 1999 state TV broadcast footage of the prosecutor general cavorting in bed with two prostitutes. A short time later FSB chief Vladimir Putin also appeared on television to attest that experts from his organization had analyzed the video and ascertained its authenticity. This compromising material, known as kompromat, effectively put an end to the investigation and the prosecutor general’s career. Yeltsin and the Family owed a debt of gratitude to Putin, who had exhibited not only loyalty but fierce, impressive effectiveness.
Yeltsin now understood that as long as he held power it would be possible to fend off attacks like that of the prosecutor general, but once out of office, he would be defenseless, easy prey. And that time was rapidly approaching. Conferring with Boris Berezovsky among others, Yeltsin began developing a plan.
In midsummer 1999 kingmaker Berezovsky was dispatched to Biarritz in the South of France, where Putin and his family were vacationing, to convince Putin to accept the post of prime minister. There two things impressed Berezovsky. One was “the very modest, absolutely simple apartment” where Putin was living. The other was Putin’s lack of eagerness, confidence: “He wasn’t sure he was capable.”[177] Neither money nor power seemed greatly to tempt him, and what else was there?
Of course, there may have been a dose of cool calculation in Putin’s coyness. The post of prime minister was a stepping-stone to oblivion. Yeltsin was changing prime ministers every few months, at such a dizzying rate that, upon the appointment of Putin, the editor of the Financial Times asked his Moscow bureau chief: “Do I really need to remember this one’s name?”[178]
In the event, he took the position of first deputy prime minister, one he would hold for a bit less than five months. That was time enough for Yeltsin and Berezovsky to hold their magnifying glass over Putin.
He had already demonstrated strength, loyalty, and effectiveness. In addition, he was vigorous, unlike Yeltsin, who was suffering heart attacks and undergoing quintuple bypasses, and had the flushed, puffy look of those who are not long for this world. Putin was tough on Chechnya and knew how to use the security service to neutralize enemies. A bit colorless, a bit ordinary, but that might be just what Russia needed after extravagant Gorbachev and flamboyant Yeltsin.
But most important were Putin’s strength and loyalty to keep the deal Yeltsin would offer—power for immunity.
Yeltsin’s vital interests and Putin’s chief characteristics aligned and clicked. A perfect fit.
And so it was that on December 31, 1999, on the eve of a new century, President Boris Yeltsin, in his annual address to the nation, asked Russians for their “forgiveness for the fact that many of the dreams we shared did not come true and for the fact that what seemed to us so simple turned out to be tormentingly difficult.”[179] And thereupon he handed Russia—its eleven time zones and its nuclear weapons, its thousand-year history and future fate—over to Vladimir Putin.
Lenin had famously said: “Any cook should be able to run the country.”[180] A cook’s grandson would now have the chance.
180
Florence Becker, “Woman’s Place,”