PUTIN By Philip Short  

PUTIN

By Philip Short

2022 Henry Holt and Company

ISBN 978 162 779 3667

              Of all the biographical and semi-biographical articles and books I have read about Vladimir Putin,  Mr. Short’s  (who also wrote what is considered by many reviewers the definitive one volume bio of Mao (Mao: A Life)) Putin stands out for several reasons.

              First it is painstakingly non-judgmental and researched (over 130 pages of end-footnotes, in fine print).  And a good deal of the book is devoted to sifting through all the various “stories” and “allegations” surrounding what Mr. Putin knew, or did not know, about various assassinations, “terrorist” incidents, a downed civilian airliner and the slow and steady deterioration in US-Russian government relations during Mr. Putin’s presidency (and how much of that deterioration was attributable to short sited, self centered US foreign policy.)

              Second it is actually enlightening for a novice such as myself on the mysteries of the workings of Russian government.  For example, he explains how the Russian Presidency was deliberately written to be a much more powerful executive branch than the American one and consequently supports, not just enables, authoritarian rule.  (Which I suppose should not surprise us as that is the only type of government Russia has had—regardless of its name brand—since the 1600s.)

              Third, Mr. Short also picks through all the fact versus fiction (to the best we are able to given the available sources) about Mr. Putin’s road to the Russian white house.  For example the major influence of Mr. Putin’s training and service in the KGB, most importantly in East Germany, was neither related to spy craft or interrogation techniques—but learning how to get things done in a bureaucracy as labyrinthine as any in history.

              Similarly from this book’s perspective,  Mr. Putin’s professional education in making things happen in a Bleak House bureaucracy was fine tuned while he served as in effect “chief of staff” for various St Petersburg-Leningrad government administrators—including its mayors, who under the Russian constitution at that time, had the same authority as the President of Russia concerning the entire area under his/her jurisdiction, which in Leningrad’s case, was considerable). 

              The traits the book details Mr. Putin demonstrated he learned to master both during his years with the KGB and in St. Petersburg were: staying in the background and out of the public eye; studious and lengthy analysis of all the players and issues that would be involved in implementing any decision or policy before doing so: and making himself indispensable in the “getting things done department” to each one of his superiors—in both the KGB and in the civic government.

              These skills served him so well that when it came time for Mr. Yeltsin to leave office he appointed Mr. Putin as his successor. And  as an illustration of just how very low a profile Mr. Putin had so successfully maintained his selection surprised virtually everyone in the preseidential sweep stakes at that time.   Mr. Short’s book also leaves one with the impression that the Chinese maxim—that if you leave the city and sit quietly by the river, soon you will start seeing the heads of your competition floating by—clearly applied in Mr. Putin’s ascendancy to the Russian Presidency.

              Mr. Short also documents how Mr. Putin’s governing skills and own campaign “To Make Russia Great Again” and “respected” (by The World) have made him consistently popular—especially outside the cities—with the Russian people throughout his tenure in office.

              This brings us to the only “disappointment” this reader suffered after completing the book.  After so meticulously categorizing how Mr. Putin came to power and how he has remained in office for so long with popular support—we expect to finally get a cogent explanation of why such a previously cautious and studious man could launch a so far disastrous  invasion of the Ukraine (from the stand point failing to militarily install a puppet government in the Ukraine to ensure Russian sovereignty over the East and Southern Ukraine and prevent NATO expansion there).

              However when we get to this point in the story of Putin—we get only a couple of pages with the following summation text and which one could say is clearly one of the central themes of this biography:

“The decision to invade, far from being aberrant, was consistent with the way he [Putin] had acted before. Throughout Putin’s time in office, whenever he was faced with what he saw as an existential choice between antagonizing the West and preserving his own power and Russia’s position in the world, the latter always prevailed.  In 2003 he had ordered the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky because nipping in the bud of the political ambitions of the business elite was more important than the loss of Western investment.  In 2014, he occupied Crimea and backed the creation of rump protectorates in Donetsk and Luhansk because safeguarding the Black Sea Fleet’s base at Sevastopol and keeping Ukraine out of NATO were more important than Western sanctions. In each case, Putin accepted the economic damage to Russia as a price that had to be paid. In 2022, the invasion of Ukraine followed the same pattern.”

              A couple of pages later Mr. Short writes:

“Putin’s biggest mistake was his refusal to accept that Ukrainians and Russians…are not one people but distinct slav nations, each of which cleaves to its own national identity. His second, scarcely less serious, miscalculation was to overestimate the capabilities of his armed forces.”

              Okay but why, after a life time of deliberative, cautious decision making did Mr. Putin throw away his successful “play book” to make such poor decisions?  (After all, He already knew all about the failings of the Russian military during their first incursion into Eastern Ukraine and Crimea.)  Working in an authoritarian office for so long? Hubris? Personal grudge/dislike of Mr. Zelensky (according to many reporters generally not an easy man to get along with.)  At least this reader gets the impression Mr. Short also has no idea.

              But that “disappointment” (and not at all a criticism) aside, this book is well worth anyone’s time who wants to know what makes Mr. Putin tick.  Of all the works on Mr. Putin prior to Mr. Short’s that his reviewer has read, no biographer has gotten closer to the “real” Putin.