HOW DO YOU SLAY A DRAGON?

If events turn out this way, they will inevitably have a whole host of negative consequences, the most serious of which could be a counter-revolutionary uprising or a slide into civil war with the potential for the state to split apart. Thus, from the first moment it becomes a task of the greatest urgency for the temporary government to encourage the senior and middle-ranking commanders in the power structures to join them. It’s no less than a matter of life or death. However well set up the system is of democratic institutions, it would take only the slightest failure for this question to become the most urgent. All we need do is look back to the day in Washington when Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol Building and remember how great were the efforts of both sides in the democratic USA to cooperate with the leadership of the Department of Defence and the Chiefs of the General Staff when they were deciding whether or not to call out the National Guard.

This question of having control over “the man with a gun” was in the background of every change of leader in a totalitarian state such as the USSR, too, with its well-established system of the ideological inheritance of power. The success of the coup against Lavrenty Beria in 1953 was greatly helped by the army remaining loyal to the Party and Soviet leadership represented by Nikita Khrushchev and Georgy Malenkov. Khrushchev’s fall from power nine years later was in no small way aided by his being betrayed by the then leadership of the USSR KGB, which supported Leonid Brezhnev, who was already heavily backed by the army. A significant factor that assisted Mikhail Gorbachev when he came to power in 1985 was that he was seen as the protégé of the former head of the KGB, Yury Andropov. In his early days this guaranteed the loyalty of the KGB leadership, helped by the neutral position adopted by senior army officers. The refusal of the KGB’s Group Alpha to storm the White House in August 1991 was the death knell for the plans of the State Committee for the State of Emergency – the GKChP – to turn back the clock to hardline Communism. One way or another, any change of power has inevitably involved the question of who controls the men with the guns. You won’t find this question widely discussed in text books about democracy, but there isn’t a single democracy in the world that would have managed to survive if, in each instance, this matter hadn’t been decided beforehand.

In Russia this has happened in accordance with its centuries-old traditions and way of life. As a rule, this involves preventative violence, sometimes very clearly displayed, at others more behind the scenes. In 1953, the conflict reached an intense phase, and Beria and his closest supporters were effectively eliminated with no investigation and no trial. The situation with the GKChP passed off without bloodshed; after being arrested and imprisoned briefly, those who took part in the coup attempt were released and were even given the chance to take part in the new Russia’s political life. If the forces are successfully aligned, the issue can be settled by simply replacing the old leadership with a new, more loyal one. But it can be difficult to put in place such an arrangement.

In any case, within a matter of hours of its being in power, the temporary government has to carry out a “vote of confidence” among the siloviki , demanding from them total acknowledgement of the government’s legitimacy. If such an acknowledgement is forthcoming, the problem is removed and it allows time for a gradual strengthening of political control over the structures of power. However, should there be any doubt expressed, or, worse still, any opposition, the temporary government has to act harshly, even physically neutralising those who refuse to acknowledge its authority (in the best case, this would be by carrying out arrests; but even this may prove to be difficult). All of this is possible, though, it’s all been done before on a number of occasions, and there is no other way of accomplishing this. Either the new authorities show who’s boss, or they’ll be destroyed; if not immediately, then soon afterwards. Politics is a cruel business, and if you don’t acknowledge this then you’re simply not telling it as it is. I believe that this is unacceptable, because ruthless honesty must be the basis of the new politics.

So, in the shortest possible period of time the new authorities must bring the power structures under their control. If they are incapable of doing this, then they don’t hold power. And there’s no point in trying to work out in advance exactly how to do this: there are no ready-made recipes for it.