MOSCOW -- Striding through the Kremlin's gold-encrusted doors and applauded by the modern nobility, Vladimir Putin returns to the Russian presidency Monday in the throne room of the czars, now a dangerously weakened autocrat.
The protests of December shook his all-powerful countenance, setting off machinations by the powers behind him who are intent on preserving their authority and privilege despite demands for democracy and reform. That conflict portends difficult and uncertain days for Russia, with Mr. Putin pressured to display more muscle than compromise.
"Putin needs to be strong," said Vladimir Pastukhov, a Russian political scientist and visiting fellow at Oxford University, "otherwise there will be 12,000 knives to his back the next day."
Mr. Putin has ruled Russia since 2000, the past four years as prime minister, and until December the nation had traded the unpredictability of democracy for the certainty of a strong hand.
Then, a vocal and economically important minority, angered by widespread allegations of fraud in parliamentary elections, declared an end to the bargain, taking to the streets in protest. The demonstrations shook what Mr. Putin called his "vertical of power," based on a line of authority that ran from the Kremlin down to the smallest city hall.
By March, when he was elected president with a reported 64 percent of the vote, doubts had appeared about his legitimacy. Now, few expect anything but a long, tumultuous road for democratic reform. Many fear turmoil. No one knows what lies ahead after Monday's inauguration for what now is a six-year presidential term.
Mr. Putin has become the protector of an army of corrupt officials and managers throughout the country who enjoy great authority and profit as long as they are loyal. Now, hidden from public view, a battle reportedly is under way between hard-liners insisting that only an uncompromising crackdown will save them and more progressive elements urging reform. The latter want to let some of the steam of anger escape and open Russia to economic development.
If Mr. Putin antagonizes the hard-liners, an assortment of security and military industrial insiders among them, he risks plots against him. If he cannot quiet the protests, he courts a popular upheaval.
Most likely, he will turn to the siloviki -- the Russian term for members of the security services and military, those with power and guns -- for support, said Dmitri Oreshkin, an organizer of the League of Voters, created this year to pursue fair elections.
"It probably won't be as stringent as the Soviet Union," he said, "but tougher than five years ago."
On Friday, authorities in Ufa, 725 miles to the east of the capital, reportedly prevented a dozen activists from boarding a train to Moscow, where an anti-Putin demonstration is planned for today. Others have reported intimidating visits from police.
"The Putin returning to the Kremlin is not the Putin who left it four years ago," said Boris Makarenko, deputy director of the Center for Political Technologies. "He left at the peak of economic growth and optimism about increasing prosperity. Now he will be cautious, conflicted. He understands that the development of Russia and the economy requires independent actors in business and public life, but at the same time he feels the need from his KGB years to keep everything under control."
First Published: May 6, 2012, 4:00 a.m.
Updated: May 6, 2012, 4:08 a.m.
