Vladimir Putin's behaviour in office as president bore all the marks of a ‘professional politician’, as defined by Weber. The Soviet system was originally run by self-styled ‘professional revolutionaries’, but in subsequent generations, individuals from the broad population were promoted, and created a less focused system, in which they survived well but which they failed to modernize, and which continued largely through efforts invested ‘out of plan’, that is, outside the command system. When that system collapsed, they took over the running of society in a haphazard way under Boris Yeltsin, leaving a chaotic legacy to his successor, Putin. His approach was that of a politician intent upon confronting the collapse of the old system and the failure of a new system to become consolidated. His goal has been not a return to the Soviet system, but the establishment of a Russian nation-state. This entailed breaking the links between big business and politics established in the 1990s, abandoning the crude ‘social contract’ between undemanding managers and undisciplined workers that depended on corruption and illegality to keep Soviet society functioning, and building a solid and secure Russian nation-state. In this, despite concerns outside the country, he has been largely successful and has won broad, if not universal, support. In these circumstances, political pluralism has been postponed.