By F. G. Baker, March 23, 2014

Masha Gessen has written a very interesting summary of the conditions and politics that helped bring Vladimir Putin to his position as President of the Russian Federation. She provides a summary of Putin’s personal, professional and political life, based on the limited information that is available for such a secretive man. There was actually little known about his life and activities before his rise to prominence in 1999 when he was appointed as Prime Minister by the Yeltsin government. Much of the book focuses on what is known about his relationships with some of Russia’s notable politicians and his murky oligarch associates. She has painted a picture of a man who had little real affinity to the Communist Party, although he was a member, who distrusts anything to do with democracy, but who was loyal to his mentors and business associates. He strongly identified with the KGB and later the FSB which replaced it, perhaps because they represented order in a nation that was known for its weak economy and uncertain stability. He was a strong nationalist believing firmly in the Russian state and the former Soviet Union. In fact, these beliefs seem to have driven his focus on providing strong central control of government and reversing or at least diminishing the loss of influence of the Russian Federation.

The book is a good introduction to the complexities of the last decades of Russian policy and politics and for the person who wishes to know more about Vladimir Putin, the autocrat. Gessen provides an insightful analysis of many of the events surrounding the rise of the democracy movement in the Soviet Union in the 1980’s through the 2000’s as well as the collapse of that government. Most of the information she provides is relatively little known in the United States which was preoccupied with other matters while the events were unfolding. Her discussion is sometimes anecdotal, sometimes based on information obtained from personal sources or experience. Therefore, she cannot necessarily provide the linkage between cause and effect in some cases, but provides what is known and some of the interpretations that have come to explain important events within recent Russian political and criminal events. She provides good documentation to support the discussion in the form of extensive endnotes, which are not indicated in the body of the text but which are referred to by the subjects discussed on each page.

The book provides insight to the man who remains an enigma to the western world and explains some of the reasons why Putin operates as he does with respect to domestic politics and to foreign policies. Gessen clearly does not like the man but tries to remain somewhat unbiased in her presentation. She, of course, has good reason to despair for democracy in her country given the current authoritarian leadership that it now has.