Putin was downsized out of the KGB in 1990 and worked for a for-
mer professor at his alma mater, Leningrad State University, and then
in the Leningrad/St. Petersburg government—the city reverted to its
pre-Soviet name after the dissolution of the USSR. In St. Petersburg,
Putin came to the attention of Boris Yeltsin’s presidential adminis-
tration and was brought to Moscow in 1997. In 1998 he was ap-
pointed head of the FSB(Federal Security Service). In August 1999
Yelstin made Putin prime minister; on the last day of that year, he was
made interim president of the Russian Federation. Putin has since
then won two general elections with solid support from the Russian
“silent majority.” As president, he has led a second Chechen war,
promising the Russian people to pursue terrorists without pause. He
has also selectively moved to prosecute corrupt businesspeople who
dominated Russian politics in the Yeltsin years.
Since becoming president, Putin has relied heavily on the Russian
intelligence servicesand former KGB colleagues, appointing many
to senior posts in his administration. Putin is an admirer of former
KGB Chair and Communist PartyGeneral Secretary Yuri An-
dropov. He apparently believes Russia needs a strong reformer who
will use the security and intelligence services to accelerate Russia’s
reforms. Russian liberals are deeply troubled by the war in Chechnya
and Putin’s apparent willingness to ignore the law in prosecuting po-
litical enemies. Perhaps future historians will compare him to tsarist
reformer Petr Stolypin, who combined repression with economic
and political reform in the last decade of imperial power.- R –
RACHKOVSKIY, PETR (c. 1850–?). One of the Okhrana’s most
successful agent handlers was Petr Rachkovskiy, who headed the
Okhrana’s Paris bureau from 1884 to 1902. Working with private de-
tectives and the police in France and Switzerland, he disrupted the
operations of socialist and anarchist groups. In 1886 Rachkovskiy’s
agents blew up a Narodnaya volyaprinting plant in Switzerland,
making it appear to be the work of disaffected revolutionaries. He
also played an important role in Franco–Russian diplomacy. He be-
came an important contact of French Foreign Minister Theophile De-212 •RACHKOVSKIY, PETR (c. 1860–?)06-313 P-Z.qxd 7/27/06 7:57 AM Page 212