MOSCOW, 5 August 2004 — More than a decade after the Soviet Union passed into history, the vanished art of Kremlinology — divining what goes on in the hidden sanctum of Russian power — seems to be making a comeback.
President Vladimir Putin’s landslide re-election in March has concentrated vast power in his hands, but the workings of his tight inner circle are increasingly shrouded in mystery. With Putin in the ascendant and a tiny group of like-minded people sharing in his decisions, access to information in the higher reaches of power has been all but shut off, and analysts say they rely entirely on inspired guesswork.
“Nothing can be decided without him and, since all major decisions are shaped inside his mind, there is no way to predict them,” said Masha Lipman, a writer on political affairs at the Carnegie Institute in Moscow.
Putin’s inner circle is dominated by a group of men from his hometown of St. Petersburg, many sharing a background in the Soviet and post-Soviet security services. “The hallowed art of Kremlinology is back in full force,” said a foreign banker based in Moscow. “But compared to the Soviet era there are now the markets to spice things up.”
In its Soviet heyday, Kremlinology meant reading the political tea leaves by poring over newspapers like Pravda and looking at official photographs to see who was standing closest to the Soviet leader, in the hope of deducing who was in and who was out of favor.
Speculation and uncertainty as to the Kremlin’s true policy intentions have now reached fever pitch over the affair surrounding oil company YUKOS, which is under sustained legal assault by the courts and possibly faces dismemberment.
Russia’s handling of the case, in which YUKOS’s former CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky — a politically ambitious tycoon known to have upset the Kremlin — is on trial on charges of fraud and tax evasion, is seen setting the tone of Putin’s administration.
Opinions among media commentators and policy analysts, who have been starved of official guidance as to what the government really wants to do with the stricken oil company, diverge over where Putin is taking the country. The available evidence can be made to support contradictory theories of what Putin’s government is up to, ranging from clipping the wings of a powerful tycoon to staging an arbitrary state takeover of a big oil company.
“If you think Putin is an iron-fisted authoritarian trying to strengthen state control, then anything that happens can be made to fit into that particular view,” said a London-based political scientist with more than 20 years experience who did not want to be named.
“But, on the other hand, if you happen to think he is market-oriented but has to go down paths that make him seem more authoritarian than he really is, then you can find enough information to support that view as well.”
Unlike leaders in most Western countries, Putin has no public team of “spin doctors” to brief the media about the main events and policy issues of the day. His official spokesman is not a public figure and is not easily approachable for comment.
