When tyrannies end
Russia after 1991
What made the disaster of Putin's rule inevitable is that the Russian power structure was not reformed after the fall of the Soviet Union. People often compare the fall of Communism with the end of Nazism, and complain that there has been no Soviet Nuremberg and thus no real dealing with the Communist darkness. But without a real change in political, administrative and social structures, a Nuremberg as such would have done little except setting up a roster of ancient and mostly dead scapegoats. And that has happened in any case - Putin likes to criticize the "bolsheviks". He is not enamoured of the Leninist past, and blames it for anything he does not like, including the existence of an independent Ukrainian state.
Italy had no Nuremberg, but the country was massively changed - even more than Germany - by the alteration in its political structures. Not only did a wave of new people, mostly from the partisan armies,take over the management of politics and administration, but the bases of administration and political power were changed. For one thing, the fundamental part that the officer corps had played in both countries was reduced to zero, and the armed forces as a whole (with the partial exception of the Italian navy and of the Corps of Carabinieri) were allowed to rot, with the silent assent of NATO allies. That was a political decision intended to cut the nerves of any possible Fascist or monarchist reaction, for which the military were felt to be the main channel. In [West] Germany, the miserable condition of the Bundeswehr has become an open scandal now that the Ukraine crisis makes defence a major consideration, after being tolerated and indeed fostered for decades.
The point is that there had been in both countries a definite decision to remove power from the areas that had done the most to foster Fascism and Nazism. In Italy, the landowner interests that had done the most to finance the Fascist party in its violent early days were broken up by an enormous land reform. In Germany there was no need - most of historic Prussia had been swallowed by Poland and Russia or left beyond the East German border.
No such thing happened in Russia. It is not only the mafia and FSB, or rather, they are only a part of a societal disease that begins, at least, with the institutions of Communism. One of the evil effects of communism was the existence of an entire unadmitted scheme of power and power display. Where equality was meant to be absolute, and achievement and position could not be signalled by wealth, they were signalled by other things. Online Russian acquaintances told me long ago, what I suspected already for various reasons, that the specialist schools for sports, ballet and other arts, are also and at the same time the training places for the "girlfriends" of provincial and national hierarchs. Having a number of young female lovers from that kind of stock is not just something that hierarchs do because they like it, but because it is necessary to be recognized as one of the elect. It does not seem casual that Putin's own current companion is a former gold-winning olympic gymnast. After the fall of the Soviet Union, more direct displays have become universal: everyone who is part of the top class just has to have a monumental yacht, even if he suffers from seasickness and has never been at sea. It's not about enjoying yourself, it's about showing your rank.
But the abuse of educational and training structures has continued. It was almost made public during a terrible scandal at the Bolshoi, one of those cultural institutions that even the West pay attention to, involving vitriol throwing and charges of systematic rape; but it was silenced somehow. And I find it significant that when even the IOC, not the most ethical or intolerant international body, was forced to recognize the immense corruption of Russian sports and suspend Russia till they mended their ways, the Russian government preferred to stay expelled rather than do even a little reform. In more than one way - I don't suppose what I set out is in any way the only one - the putrescent corruption of Russian sports is necessary to the Russian system. Reforming it would cause consequences that Putin and his ruling class refuse to face.
Mutatis mutandis, this is not unlike the way that the German officer corps, that was the real skeleton and backbone of the Prussian-German state, remained at the heart of things after 1919, with poisonous consequences for Germany and Europe. Putin, like the officers corps then, never accepted the defeat of the Soviet Union, even though accepting bad things is the sounder and saner way to build. And the system is too rooted in Russian society to be easily reformed, or even made visible.
The existence of a whole system of power and control which is both itself hideously corrupt - Russia, among other things, is the world centre for illegal pornography - and that has completely outlived its origin, means that the country cannot be reformed. The opportunity for that has passed with Yeltsin's early years. Now we have a headache for which I for one can't imagine what we are to do.