Book Review: The New Tsar

By: Steven Lee Myers

This is a biography of Vladimir Putin, Russia’s most powerful government official. The title of the book is supposed to imply Putin as a dictator, as all the Tsars were. This trend continues throughout the book, although the character of this person, and his desire to promote Russia to its former status, Soviet Union, is clearly explained throughout the book.

The book is written by Steve Myers who spent seven years as New York Times correspondent in Russia during the presidency of Putin. The tale of this biography begins with the second world war, when Putin’s father, Vladimir Spiridonovich was a soldier in that war. After the birth of his third son in October 7, 1952, he named him Vladimir Vladimirovich, the subject of this book.

Vladimir Vladimirovich was raised in a family with limited education and low job skills. He was born after his two older brothers died during the second world war, and when his mother reached her forty-one years age. Putin’s mother had apparently religious beliefs, but she could not practice it in the Soviet Union and had to keep her religious beliefs to herself. Young Vladimir started attending school on the first of September 1960 when he was almost eight years old. While he was attending school, his father pressed him to take boxing, which he did but did not enjoy it. After a short while however, he quit boxing and started learning sambo, which is a combination of wrestling and judo. When he was sixteen years old, a popular novel titled “The Shield and the Sword” was published in the Soviet Union, and later a movie was made based on that novel. Both the novel and the movie became very popular, and they were read and viewed by many Russians. The hero of the book was a secret agent, an employee of KGB. That novel and the movie influenced Putin so much that he changed his childhood wish to become a sailor, or his father’s wish to become a pilot, and envisioned himself to be a secret agent. One day, when he was coming back from school, in pursuing his wish, he walked to the office of KGB and volunteered his services. However, he was told that he was too young for KGB services, and he should finish his schooling first. It is probable that KGB kept a note of this youngster’s enthusiasm, as he was approached later to pursue his wishes. Therefore, and for the time being, he continued his schooling and enjoyed his schoolwork along with sports.

After finishing his high school, he applied for the University of Leningrad in 1970. According to the book, one out of every forty applicants would get admitted to that university, but he was able to be accepted and enter law school. During the university years, he experienced his first meaningful relationship with a medical student by the name of Lyudmila Khmaina. We don’t know how long this relationship lasted though, however at some point it had fallen apart. After he completed his college, one day he was approached by a stranger who introduced himself as a KGB agent, asking him if he was still interested to join the organization. This was the beginning of his work for KGB in the summer of 1975, which continued until Soviet Union was dissolved and his residence and work became a part of Russian Republic.

Vladimir Putin completed KGB’s academy as a lieutenant in the summer of 1976, and was assigned to work as a counterintelligence officer. While he was still attending high school, he learned German, which later in his career it became an asset. In fact, because of that and many other assignments he performed as an intelligence agent, he was promoted to a First Chief Directorate position, which according to the book less than two percent of employees could move up to such position. Later in 1979, he was promoted to the position of a captain. Being single, he could not get international assignments, as KGB preferred to send married employees outside of the country.

In 1980, he met another Lyudmila, Lyudmila Shkrebneva. They dated for three and a half years before they got married.

After nine years of work for KGB, he was promoted to attend the elite school of foreign intelligence in Moscow. The school was outside of Moscow in a forest area, and it still exists under a new name, the Academy of Foreign Intelligence. His first daughter, Masha, was born in 1985, while he was still attending the academy. After he was graduated, at the age of thirty-three, he received his first foreign mission to Dresden, in East Germany. In the fall of 1985, Lyudmila joined him, along with her daughter Masha, and soon after they had their second daughter.

Putin’s office was responsible for gathering intelligence, recruiting agents who had access to the West, and finding travelers to the western part of Europe who would provide them with intelligent materials on NATO. In 1987, he received a gold medal from Stasi chief. Putin admired Soviet dissidents such as Sakharov, and remarked his joy after Sakharov was released from exile. However, he felt that the system was cracking under Gorbachev’s new policies of perestroika and glasnost.

It was on October 3, 1990, when Germans broke the wall between the East and the West, and Germany became unified. Putin was still working as an employee of KGB in East Germany. He was in a precarious position, although he claimed to have sympathized with protestors’ broad demands. On December 5, a crowed broke into the Stasi compound. Putin was in command at the time with a few officers around him. In order to prevent the crowed from entering KGB compound, he made a short speech to protestors, warning them that if they moved further, they might endanger their lives, as soldiers were ordered to shoot anyone entering the compound. This was a risky speech, as there was no soldier to protect the compound and shoot anyone, and by this announcement he made a calculated risk. Demonstrators believed him and since they had planned a peaceful demonstration regardless, they dispersed. Later, agents packed all the files to be sent to Russia, and Putin and his family moved back, first to Moscow and then to Leningrad. At this time, after sixteen years of service for KGB, Putin resigned from his post in 1991.

Boris Yeltsin became the president of the new Russia. Putin became employed in mayoral office as his close friend and colleague, Anatoly Sobchak, became the mayor of the second largest city in Russia. Sobchak also became the second most popular political figure during those turbulent years, after Yeltsin. As the mayor, Sobchak was the most powerful person in Petersburg. Months later, however, his authoritative tendencies and economic problems the city was facing, along with the changes he was making to revamp the economy of the city by promoting casinos in a Las Vegas style, made him unpopular. In fact, the city was facing huge shortages, and many households’ needs had to be rationed.

Putin and a deputy by the name of Anikin were responsible to contract out businesses. There was an investigation afterwards to check the legality and fair negotiation on those contracts. Putin and Anikin were not charged with any illegality, but “complete incompetence bordering on bad faith” (P. 81). Some federal investigators checked the affair, and Putin was tainted with scandals for the first time. However, he was promoted to deputy mayor of Petersburg afterwards. Sobchak was keen in having foreign businesses invest in the city, and companies such as Heineken, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Ford, and Wrigley got permission to open businesses in the city. “Putin became a wheeler and dealer, brokering investments and refereeing business disputes through personal connections, contracts, and threats” (P. 84).

Speaking of the new Russia during Yeltsin’s presidency, after introducing capitalism to the economy, the economy kept a downhill trend each year. Gross domestic national product fell by double digits each year and early during Yeltsin’s presidency. He abolished Supreme Soviets and the Congress, that resulted in a violent protest in Moscow on October 2, 1993. Yeltsin sent the army and tanks to crush the demonstrators.

While Sobchak was the mayor, Putin was very loyal to him and during all those years he was working very closely to him. In the next election however, Sobchak lost the election, and Putin was out of work. In June of 1996, Yeltsin narrowly won the presidency for another four years. Putin helped Yeltsin’s reelection campaign in Petersburg. Luckily, in October 1996 and soon after he was out of work, Putin received an offer to oversee the legal department in Kremlin. He accepted the position and the family moved to Moscow. Not long after they moved to Moscow, he received another promotion to become the head of the Main Control Directorate, along with deputy chief of staff in the presidential administration. The economy was stabilizing in 1997, except the price of oil that surged, resulting a drain in government’s reserves. In 1998, Yeltsin changed Putin’s position to the first deputy director of the presidential administration. However, two months later he was assigned to head FSB, which replaced Soviet’s KGB. “Putin had not been long in Lubyanka when he found himself at the center of a public scandal greater than any he had faced before” (P. 130). The story was that a group of six ex-FSB employees, four of whom were wearing masks, appeared on TV and revealed several crimes by FSB, including an order to murder a high-level businessman by the name of Berezovsky. After investigating the incident and interviewing one of the participants, Putin went on TV and negated those claims and even ridiculed those FSB agents and stressed that everything in his agency was under control. This is of course during the time that the political system is in a chaos, and murder and kidnapping by various gangs is prominent all over Russia. It should be mentioned, however, that the most damaging incident to Kremlin was the Chechen war.

Rapid promotions of Putin to higher positions had not been unnoticed. According to the book, it was mostly due to his separate approach in various issues which was outside of the political gangs created after the demise of the Soviet Union. Although he had respects for Yeltsin, his approach in politics was honest and he seemed to represent a new and an independent political view, as it is recorded in the book. There are many positive characteristics noted about Putin in the book which are refreshing, since there are many other phrases tarnishing his character. It is specifically mentioned that there was at least one attempt by some Yeltsin opponents to receive his cooperation in joining them in their various anti-Yeltsin collaborations, which he refused. Yeltsin was constantly going to the hospital, and his health was deteriorating. Putin noticed that, and since Yeltsin’s popularity was failing, he could not envision another term for the president. He speculated that by next election some other parties would win Yeltsin’s position, and he would be out of job as well.

On December 14, 1999, five days before the election, Yeltsin called Putin for a private talk in his residence. In their meeting, Yeltsin confessed to Putin: “I want to step down this year, Vladimir Vladimirovich … the new millennium must begin with a new political era, the era of Putin” (P. 166). Putin who was shocked by Yeltsin’s offer and was not prepared for that, replied that he was not ready to be responsible to run the nation. Yeltsin explained to him how the country needed a fresh blood and a young and energetic leader to face the new millennia. Yeltsin finally convinced Putin to accept the position when he stepped down, and mentioned to him that since the election time was near, Russian people could decide who their leader would be. At the beginning hours of the new year, Yeltsin addressed Russians of his decision to step down. Putin had his own televised new year’s address, informing Russians that there would not be a power vacuum, and promised to ensure restoration of law and order to the best of his ability.

From this point on, the book continues with Putin as a president. It goes through all the global and Russian related events, from the time Putin’s presidency begins in the new millennia, while all the events of this period are explained in detail up to the date the book was published in 2016. Putin’s efforts paid off when he was elected to the office twice, and then he supported Medvedev for presidency, and again his own presidency for another eight years. As it was mentioned earlier, the author of this book attempts to present Putin with dictatorial ambitions. What the book does not discuss is the attitude Yeltsin and Putin had towards the west, considering their country the same as other NATO members, and hoping to become a part of NATO organization. After the Soviet Union’s collapse, both Yeltsin and Putin did everything in their powers to keep a friendly relationship with other European countries and the United States, and to join them in their political and economic adventures.

The book’s political vision matches what United States’ officials claim about their foreign policies. Therefore, it does not discuss the hegemonial behaviors of the United States towards other weaker nations who were allies of the Soviet Union at some distant past. Russia was not allowed to become a member of NATO, however most of the ex-Soviet countries have since been entered into NATO, and Ukraine was to be the last one, which would make Russia surrounded by NATO members. After the United States government extended its supremacy militaristically into Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Suria, Somalia, and Sudan, in the absence of Soviet Union and any other superpower, it became clear to the world that the aim of the United States government was to extend its hegemony worldwide. Since the political power in the United States is not the White House, but the Military Industrial Complex, creating wars around the world is always beneficial to such power. There is always a need for a constant enemy in order to produce more military hardware, and Russia along with China adequately fill such position. It took Putin some years to understand that Russia could not be a friend of other Western States. He even made predictions during Medvedev’s presidency that the uprisings in Libya and other nations were supported by the West. He learned the hard way that his country was no longer a superpower and would not be allowed to share such title with the existing superpower. Of course, the book does not discuss this, as its theme is identical to the policies of the United States, as it was mentioned earlier.

However, this book, The New Tsar, is worth reading to learn about Vladimir Putin’s raise from a secret agent to presidency and understand the history behind one of the world’s superpowers. A few global incidents such as the fiasco of Snowden, Russia’s friendship with China, military intrusion into Ukraine, and many other issues related to Russia and the world surrounding it can also be comprehended through the paragraphs of this book. In general, the book is very informative and illuminating.