ABSTRACT
Far from the KGB thug who did the dirty business, Vladimir Putin conforms to the fashionable image, among Russians, of the intellectual elites of informed agents. By the time Putin joined the KGB’s First Chief Directorate in 1975, it was well-established as a special elite unit. Many of those are present-day or former intelligence agents that critical Russian opposition intellectuals already point to a “KGB-ization” of Putin’s Russian state. Perhaps even more ominous, acting president Putin has been replacing many of the regional presidential representatives with former regional chiefs from Russia’s present-day internal security agency and successor to the KGB, the KSB. Russia under Putin will be a tough authoritarian state with power accrued to the center, with some controls over the “oligarchs” who virtually own the country but with encouragement for other economic developments. A Putin “administration” is likely to be one in which he demands to be seen as the embodiment of the state.
