Hmm. So you're saying the KGB knew what was best for Russia...

Here's something to heat up the tinfoil hats among our readers - maybe that would apply here!

Might the CIA know what is best for America? Are the neoconservatives being too harsh on George Tenet?

That argument implies as well why Bush hasn't turned yet over his economic policy to the CIA. That is, as long as they happen to have better data on the state of the US economy than on the existence of WMDs in Iraq.

Not sure how these folks made the leap from KGB to CIA...not even close in terms of structure, power, ideology and mission. Geez...George Tenet is no Putin (Putin is likely much smarter)!

Stephen...I agree with your overall assessment. It is obvious to many of us that some kind of backlash from the Russian experience in the 90's was coming with the only question being from which side the backlash would come (right or left). To illustrate, if the Russians had had a weaker president post-Yeltsin than Putin, the oligarchs would have continued to plunder and the public perception of the good of economic reform would have continued to worsen. That certainly would have opened the door to a resurgence of the old Communist Party. That, of course, would have been disasterous to economic reform (the 1st necessary step to an eventually more-liberal Russia).

While one cannot be happy with some of the more autocratic moves of the Putin government, the retention of the economic reformers in the cabinet is a good sign and an indicator of which direction the FSB (fmr KGB) intends to take Russia. After all, the FSB had front row seats to the economic competition between communism and capitalism and are smart enough to see where they need to go (with the winners). The incredibly weak showing of the Russian Communist Party in the December elections is also a good sign and likely proof that not everything Putin is doing is leading Russia in the wrong direction.

Just some thoughts from a long-time Soviet/Russia analyst.

"Not sure how these folks made the leap from KGB to CIA...not even close in terms of structure, power, ideology and mission."

Not sure, why Green and apparently you, too, thinks, that all the bright heads in Russia are assembled in the KGB while the dumbheads miraculously didn't get in. If they had been that smart in the past it should have taken them so long to figure out that their economic and political system was at a serious disadvantage compared to the West.

I also wouldn't give much thought on the result of any party in the last parliamentary election, rigged as it was.

You're forgetting something, Steve. The KGB's first pick for dictator was Yuri Andropov, who if he'd lived longer probably would have been even worse than Brezhnev in terms of internal repression and general Soviet expansionism. Andropov personally gave the order to shoot down KAL 007.

I hear what you're saying, but I don't trust the KGB to 'do the right thing.' Not one iota.

Will,

Depends on which "right thing" you're referring to.

IIRC, Andropov was a big believer in perestroika (not sure he called it that). As head of KGB, he was much more familiar with the West, and understood better the prospects of getting into a technology-race with them. He (and Ogarkov, then Soviet Defense Minister) believed that simply relying on sheer weight of metal was not going to bring victory in the future.

There are some analyses, iirc, that put Gorbachev down as part of the Andropov faction---not that Gorby was KGB, but that he and Gorby saw eye-to-eye on the need to reform (and that Andropov may have helped Gorby up the ladder a bit, too). This is less far-fetched than it might seem at first glance, if Chernenko's rise is ascribed to hold-over Brezhnevites getting their last gasp (literally) in, before Gorby then succeeds him.

Now, Andropov, as you note, was no democrat---he probably would have tightened up the repression, even as he sought to modernize the Soviet economy.

BUT, rather than argue (as TOE does, tediously) that somehow the assumption is that KGB had all the brightlings, consider instead that KGB may have had a somewhat less filtered view of what the competition (i.e., the West) was capable of doing. Next to an apparatchik or a Party secretary who'd risen by conforming to Plan, here were people who, to some extent, had more exposure to what the West could (and, as importantly, could not) do. Thus, it's not that all the bright folks went to KGB (they didn't), but that bright folks who WERE in KGB had better access to better-rounded information.

Pax:

One of the things that has puzzled me is why there appears to STILL, after nearly a decade, been no reform on land ownership issues. It would seem that shutting down the collective farms once and for all and settling property rights (as Deng did in China) would free up an enormous amount of enterprise, initiative, and settle down basic uncertainties. I've no indication that Putin is any more likely to move down this path, however, than Yeltsin, or Gorby?

I find it curious, even though Russia is labeled as a democracy, that we still have to look at things like "cabinet moves" as our only indicator of what is actually going on in Putin's head, because you sure as heck can't trust a thing the guy says. And even then, chances are, we're going to guess wrong. Putin's crafty that way.

The habits of the Politburo are still deeply entrenched. I'm waiting with bated breath to see how the Khodorkovsky case shakes out, particularly after the YUKOS shareholder's greenmail attempt a few weeks ago. This case will be an even bigger indicator as to where Putin wants to take Russia than his cabinet appointments.

Some years ago I read an article, I wish I could remember where, possibly an old issue of Foreign Affairs, that discussed the state of the Russian economy. It made a very interesting point that is still (from all indications) being painfully learned there today.

Basically (it read), when the USSR fell, people came storming in chanting 'capitalism, capitalism' and tried to graft western-style thought onto the grave of communism. The problem was that there were pretty much no functioning government services to support it - you can't have property rights, for example, if there's no functioning police to enforce those rights. You can own your own home & business, but Boris can walk up with a gang of AK-toting thugs and run you off, and there's nothiung to be done about it if the cops are just another street gang. The upshot was that the Mafiya rolled into the vacuum left by the old guard.

While many capitalists & libertarians go on about 'smaller government', etc., there is a certain minimum amount of gov't necessary for a basic modern society to exist. The question is (and I'll have to leave it to people who know a lot more about the current state of Russian gov than me to figure): Has Putin established enough infrastructure for these cabinet guys, no matter how smart they are, to actually have any impact?

TO: Stephen Green
RE: I Don't See It...

"So when you see that Putin -- himself an old KGB hand -- has appointed more of his old cronies to power, you might breathe a small sigh of relief." -- Stephen Green

...as a necessarily 'good' thing.

Sure, the economic side of the inner council is still in the hands of reformers. And that was necessary.

But Putin has consolidated his hold over the foreign side of operations, replacing Yeltsinists and the body as a whole with his new Prime Minister; Fradkov. Fradkov may be a Harvard man who studied economics, but Putin's got his doberman, Kozak, as Fradkov's Chief of Staff. [Note: Watch out Fradkov, you watch-dog has a nasty bite.]

My take?

This looks more like a war-cabinet, than it had before. Another 'indicator', as some intel types might say.

Regards,

Chuck(le)

So, what are the Russian 'street' Blogs saying?

Ignorant on this point—are there any?

Just about the topic. There is an interesting article over at Foreign Affairs which discusses that Russia is, afterall, a normal country considering its present state.

Vilmos

Russia seems to oscillate between anarchy and oppression. Looks like the oppression side of the seesaw is coming down again.

Legion, your argument about having enough government to administer the state is basically the conservative one. I have made it at times to libertarians and am invariably called a statist for my pains (their worst insult). They deliberately resist understanding it.