Out of Options; After the Beslan tragedy, Vladimir Putin discovers the limits of Stalin Lite.

Byline: Frank Brown and Anna Kuchment (With Eve Conant in Washington)

In one of the worst spates of terrorism Russia has ever seen, 425 people are dead--blown up at a Moscow subway station, killed on two passenger jets blown out of the sky and, most horrifically, massacred in Beslan's School No. 1 on the first day of classes. Russians are dazed and angry: How could this happen? Who will be held responsible? What will be done to prevent the next atrocity? And they want answers. "If someone doesn't take responsibility," says Vladimir Solovyov, a popular Moscow radio and television host who initiated a large antiterror rally in Red Square last week, "I don't see much of a future for the country, for this government. We'll have paralysis."

It is fashionable in the West to portray Vladimir Putin, the cautious, taciturn former KGB colonel, as Stalin Lite. And it's a valid characterization, up to a point. Putin has stripped freedoms from the press, side-lined rivals or thrown them in prison and forged a rigid administrative structure that commands obedience from Parliament, regional leaders and the judiciary. Yet the discipline Putin has imposed is based on the sort of fear that leads to inertia--the governmental paralysis that Solovyov fears. The latest wave of terror has brutally exposed this weakness and leaves Putin himself more vulnerable than ever to criticism.

The breakdown at Beslan was stunning--and compounded by the Russian government's propensity to conceal the truth. For days after 32 terrorists seized the school, taking at least 1,000 hostages, top leaders remained silent or offered bureaucratic platitudes as they waited for Kremlin orders. They lied about the number of hostages at risk. They failed to secure the school and its precincts--setting the stage for the mad melee that followed, when armed civilians stormed the school, hoping to free their children on their own and disobeying a cease-fire negotiated between authorities and the terrorists. The disarray was such that the terrorists were even able to sneak outside the school and reconnoiter a possible escape, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov told Russian television Saturday night. Even now, more than a week later, it's still unclear precisely what happened--how many terrorists were involved, whether there really were Arab extremists among them and (most incredibly) how they were able to drive a truck full of armed men through police checkpoints to seize the school.

Putin initially rejected any public inquiry into what went wrong. Then, facing public outcry, he announced on television that Parliament would launch an inquiry on Sept. 20. Critics predicted a whitewash or, as happened after terrorists seized a Moscow theater two years ago, an "investigation" that never seems to end or produce any conclusions. As for himself, Putin offered the country few assurances--no explanation for the military's botched handling of the crisis, let alone specific plans for dealing with future threats. At one point he seemed to blame foreign powers for Russia's troubles, saying they wanted to rob Russia of a "juicy morsel"--his only reference to separatist Chechnya. Underlings picked up the theme. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov lashed out at the United States and Britain for granting asylum to Chechen rebel leaders, and the country's top general asserted Russia's right to launch pre-emptive attacks on foreign terrorist bases, adding helpfully that Russia "would not resort to nuclear weapons."

Yet Putin recognizes that he is in a bind. Part of his reticence during the crisis reflects his native cautiousness. But it also bespeaks his reluctance to further inflame popular passions, and possibly make his Chechnya problem even worse. Opinion polls last week showed that an overwhelming majority of Russians want to crush terrorists, to take the fight to them, wherever and whoever they might be. By contrast, virtually no one in power believes that military force will solve the conflict, or possibly even deter terrorists. Indeed, if misdirected at civilians, as so often in the past, a crackdown could exacerbate the problem. As he aims to strike back at the child killers of Beslan--offering $10 million rewards for Chechen rebel leaders Aslan ...