Putin’s Exit will Be ‘a Much Greater Shock’ to System than Departure of Any of His Soviet Predecessors Was, Pastukhov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 23 – Vladimir Putin’s departure from rule one way or another “will be a much greater shock to the system than the departure of any Soviet leader,” Vladimir Pastukhov says, “precisely because,” given the Kremlin leader’s highly personalistic rule, “there is no mechanism for the collective leadership of the country now, even in a bastardized form.”

            As a result, the London-based Russian analyst says, the selection of someone to succeed him will take place not within a collective leadership committed to keeping things within the family as it were but by means of the intervention of those prepared to use force and violence to get their way (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=62B5F0C266E4F).

            Both in 1953-1956 and again in 1982-1985, the CPSU leaders were able to come together as a collective leadership and to block those who might have used force to challenge either one potential leader or the entire system. After Putin goes, there is little likelihood that anything similar will emerge, Pastukhov says.

            In the absence of any established system for choosing a new leader, Russia almost certainly will revert at least for a time for what was the case during almost two centuries of Romanov rule: the intervention of force structures, in that case, guards regiments, to decide who would come out on top.