With the implosion of the Soviet system, politics had to be remade in Russia, but much of it bore the legacy of its Soviet forebear. The legitimation program for individual leadership was one aspect of the system with strong continuities from the Soviet period. Both Yeltsin and Putin have utilised the same strategies used by their Soviet predecessors, albeit with some tweaking to take account of the new circumstances. The broad program adopted by Yeltsin was different in emphasis in the early part of his rule compared with the later part. Initially he relied most heavily on his personal authority and transactional activity, with more moderate reliance on alliance, mobilisation, policy and threat. From 1996 this changed; transactional activity remained prominent, while reliance on factional support and threat were more evident than they had been earlier. Over the whole life of his period as president, Putin has been much more consistent in his reliance on a broad spread of strategies. All of the strategies with the exception of factional support have been extensively used, with threat becoming more important as a strategy after his 2012 return to the presidency.