Talk about an iron hand and a forthcoming dictatorship have become more frequent. But this does not reassure those who suffered under the Soviet totalitarianism that dominated the last century. Many Russians are pondering whether Putin could revive the influence of the secret services, which once counted on 300,000 active members and the collaboration of perhaps 30 percent of the population. The common wisdom has been that they were whittled down by budget cuts following the Soviet Union's demise in 1991. But recently, Putin has allocated more funding to the security forces, amid speculation, denied by the government, that the FSB and the Interior Ministry will be merged to become stronger.
Analysts say the thousands of agents who left the services maintain an old-boy network.
Putin himself has summoned ex-KGB colleagues from his native St Petersburg to join his staff. Such men are pre-disposed to less liberal thinking, says Vyasheslav Nikonov, a political analyst who served as an aide to the last KGB chief, Vadim Bakatin. Those in their 40s, like Putin, are the pragmatic generation. Tough measures against perceived enemies were indeed Putin's mark during his brief tenure as FSB head and then as prime minister. Under his stewardship, the services spent time harassing an enviromentalist for revealing secret information.