The War of the Putin Succession

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President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said that he plans to step down after serving his constitutional limit of two terms in office. For his Kremlin entourage, this has meant that the search for a successor has been on since at least the 2004 presidential election.

The successor problem is nothing new in modern Russian history. In the 70 years of its existence, the Soviet Union never managed to solve the problem of transferring power. None of the more than half-a-dozen Great Leaders starting with Lenin was able to anoint a successor and end his days in peace and quiet. The only way to leave the Kremlin was either in an oak box tastefully lined with red bunting or in disgrace after a palace coup.

This probably makes the Soviet Union unique among known polities, from primitive tribes to modern industrial democracies. Although few can match Rome's 2,000-year record of apostolic succession, Britain and the United States have long enjoyed political continuity. Conversely, whenever succession breaks down, the entire system falls into crisis.

The monarchical principle was based on the God-given right to rule, but since the French and American revolutions the ballot box has gradually become the basis for political legitimacy. However, in all political systems the transfer of power reaffirms the social compact, to use Rousseau's terminology, which transcends the individuals involved. In other words, law-based succession is a gauge of the legitimacy of a political system.

It is ironic that communism, which promulgated scientific principles of social organization, failed to create any kind of legitimacy on which political succession could be based. After Lenin's death, his followers knew instinctively that succeeding him would be a problem. In an extraordinary act redolent of pagan ritual, they mummified Lenin's body and placed it in a specially constructed mausoleum. Henceforth, each new Soviet leader would stand on top of the mausoleum during public functions -- or, literally, atop Lenin's body. He would claim to "purify" the Leninist dogma and attack his predecessors as distorters and deviationists.

This lack of continuity extended deep down the line of bureaucracy. In the Soviet Union, you could never merely be a technocrat doing your job. Each new leader brought in his loyalists, and the old guard was promptly retired, expelled and sometimes jailed. The fear of turmoil was the main reason why so many Soviet leaders had to die in office. Brezhnev, for instance, was ailing, exhausted and senile, but even he was not allowed to step down.

The only exception was Boris Yeltsin, Russia's first post-communist president. He alone swept to power on a wave of popular support, rather than being chosen by a coterie of party apparatchiks. Although highly unpopular in the end, he had true legitimacy, and hence real strength. This permitted him to become the only Russian leader to leave office voluntarily, on his own terms.

Putin wants to become another. However, Yeltsin failed to build a free-standing, law-based power structure that his successor could use to legitimize his rule. Putin, although elected in a free and fair election, needed to reach back to the Soviet Union to create his own legitimacy. Like so many Soviet rulers, he felt obliged to malign his predecessor and declare a fresh start. Not surprisingly, bureaucrats at all levels of Putin's Russia are once again hired based on allegiance, not competence. Lenin's mummy remains in place, and his spirit still wanders the corridors of the Kremlin.

This suggests that there can be no real successor to Putin. His choice is stark and is no different from what every Party boss faced in the past. He will either go out feet first decades from now -- or, if he insists on retiring, a group of determined courtiers will accomplish a controlled transition by suddenly and swiftly toppling him from the throne.

Alexei Bayer, a native Muscovite, is a New York-based economist.