Contemporary Russia is in a state of dramatic political flux, for the second time in the twentieth century. The regime of the Tsars, which had survived with little change in essentials since Ivan the Terrible in the sixteenth century, collapsed abruptly--though not without a long period of preceding weakness--in 1917. By the end of that year, a new regime and new system had come to power, the Bolsheviks or Soviets, though their success was assured only after two or three years of civil war and foreign intervention.
The Soviet regime in turn collapsed in 1992. Unlike the Tsarist regime before it, it did not show obvious signs of crisis till the last few years as it tried to reform itself under Mikhail Gorbechev. In contrast, though, the aftermath of its fall has by no means been so clearcut. The Bolshevik regime was born in war and violence, and after three years of its power in Russia was unchallenged. The democratic system that supplanted Soviet rule came into being almost without bloodshed, but after more than three years its hold on real power is by no means secure.
The traditional political order in Russia, under the Tsars and the Soviets alike, may be characterized as civil autocracy. That is, a single center of power was absolute and omnicompetent in civil and military affairs alike, and that center of power was essentially civilian. Neither the Tsars nor the Soviets were in any sense military dictatorships. Tsarist rule was a personal and dynastic absolutism; Tsars might affect military ranks and wear military uniforms, as other contemporary monarchs did, but they did not come out of the army. Soviet rule was an ideological and bureaucratic absolutism, the civilian Party hierarchy exercising total authority over the Red Army.
Civil autocracy has been the normal pattern in Russia. Today, the government is civilian, but not autocratic, and the war in Chechnya cast some doubt upon whether the civil gov...