A Silovik (силови́к, plural: siloviks or siloviki, силовики́, from a Russian word for force) is a Russian politician from the old security or military services, often the officers of the KGB, the FSB, the Federal Narcotics Control Service and military or other security services who came into power under Presidents Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin. It can also refer to security-service personnel from any country or nationality.
Derivation
The term derives from the fact that these people come from "power ministries", which under Yeltsin and Putin formed a de facto higher level inner cabinet. Sometimes the term is translated as "strongman". The drawback of this translation is that it obscures the particular career background of these persons, as described above.
Political tendencies
While realists, the siloviki tend to favor a conservative "Great Russian" nationalism; an autocratic, slavophilic, tradition that stretches back to the reign of Tsar Alexander III. However, the siloviki do not go to the ideological extremes of nationalist groups such as Pamyat, the Vladimir Zhirinovsky's Liberal Democratic Party or the Tsarist-era Black Hundred.
Views of the siloviki
First of all, the siloviki believe that the state is the very base of society and therefore should be strong. Thus, they work for an enhancement of state power in all spheres, consolidated by a strengthening of the security and defence structures. The state should also control (not necessarily own) the economy, at least within the so-called “strategic sectors”. They believe that Russia’s rich natural resources belong to Russia, meaning the state, and deplore the privatisation of the economy in the early 1990s. There are clear nationalistic and xenophobic elements and sometimes even anti-Semitic views on public display by leading siloviki members, as well as widespread support for the Russian Orthodox Church. The siloviki “national project” can somewhat sharply defined be summarised as follows: patriotism, imperialism, Orthodox clericalism; militarism; authoritarianism; cultural uniformity; xenophobia; economic dirigisme; and demographic pessimism.
Vis-à-vis foreign policy, the siloviki work to establish a strong Russian state which can restore Russia’s “greatness” in international relations and reclaim Moscow’s former sovereignty and influence in the so-called “near abroad”, the non-Russian states of the former Soviet empire, which was lost with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Another point of view in Russia is that the siloviki are an appropriate counterweight to the Russian oligarchs, who might otherwise loot Russia and subvert its government. Adherents of this view compare siloviks to American law-enforcement figures like J. Edgar Hoover, who ran the FBI (and had a disproportionately influential standing in US politics) for nearly half of the 20th century.
Further reading
- The making of a neo-KGB state In: The Economist, The Economist Newspaper Limited, 25. August 2007. Abgerufen am 24. August 2007
External links
- William Safire on the Siloviki
- The Siloviki in Putin's Russia: Who They Are and What They Want, Washington Quarterly, Winter 2007
- The Exile on Russia's brewing "Silovik war"