Politics

How Powerful Is Vladimir Putin Really?


But Russia today, Ms. Schulmann said, resembles not so much the rigidly regimented country ruled by Stalin as the dilapidated autocracy of Russia in the early 19th century. The ruler at the time, Czar Nicholas I, presided over corrupt civilian and military bureaucracies that expanded Russian territory, led the country into a disastrous war in Crimea and drove the economy into a stagnant dead end.

Nicholas knew the limits of his power: “It is not I who rule Russia,” he complained. “It is the 30,000 clerks.” The only real difference now, Ms. Schulmann said, is that “clerks,” or bureaucrats, now number over a million and a half.

“It is a great illusion that you just need to reach the leader and make him listen and everything will change,” she added. “This is not how it happens.”

The illusion, however, is largely a result of the Kremlin’s own propaganda about the man at the top of what it calls the “power vertical.”

An annual call-in show broadcast on state television features Mr. Putin taking hours of questions and complaints from the public. The ritual is invariably followed by reports in state media about how crumbling schools, broken heating systems, giant potholes and other problems raised by callers have been fixed on Mr. Putin’s orders.