Vladimir Putin’s former adviser and spin doctor Gleb Pavlovsky, who has died aged 71, was once described as “Putin’s Karl Rove”. He was the man who got things done in the Kremlin, like Rove did for his political master, George W. Bush.
Pavlovsky – a dissident turned apparatchik turned dissident again – was at the heart of Russian political thinking, whether on the inside or the outside, for the best part of five decades. He is credited as one of the key architects of Russia’s post-Soviet political system, which has become known as the “super-presidency” and was instrumental in orchestrating the cult of personality which surrounds the current Russian president.
Many years later, as an outsider and prominent Kremlin critic after falling out with Putin in 2011, Pavlovsky reflected on his work in building the “myth” of Putin:
