The robber barons
When the USSR imploded with the failure of its 75-year experiment with communism, it was every man for himself. As capitalism was working in the US, why not try it? With no equivalent of America’s Wall Street, Russians eschewed stocks and bonds and went for the money.
What just about everybody there wanted in the 1990s was a car of their own, but there weren’t enough to go around. To get one without a long wait it was common to pay a bribe. Up sprang car salesmen with their hands out. Soon they were looking to expand to other businesses.
The five-year plans hadn’t been efficient. The new entrepreneurs, with degrees in mathematics and economics, analysed the strengths and weaknesses to their own advantage. Indeed, they made an obscene fortune. Oligarchs was the term coined for them in their homeland. Abroad, they were billionaires.
Apart from estates in Europe, banks, oil pipelines, newspapers and television networks, they had government officials on their payroll. They had the ear of President Yeltsin. Enemies accumulated, not least the Russian Mafia. Murders were common place. Then the real fly in the ointment arrived on the scene.
Stateside author Ben Mezrich has found his niche penning non-fiction books about post-red Russia. His most recent is Once Upon A Time In Russia. It focuses on the efforts of the Russian president — not Yeltsin but his successor, Putin — to rid his land of the rich and powerful oligarchs.
Formerly with the KGB, later prime minister, the megarich thought they could control him. To their chagrin, he took his job seriously and threw his weight around. When push came to shove, he pushed and shoved harder. Those who didn’t end up in jail were exiled.
For a while Boris Berezovsky regarded Roman Abramovich, his younger partner, as his protégé. But when Roman took the greater share they parted. Putin sent them packing and in London Boris sued Roman for fraud. Roman winning the case left Boris despondent. The more so when Putin refused to lift his exile decree.
The best chapter in the book is the sinking of the submarine Kursk.
In power since 1999, it’s unlikely that Putin will step down in the foreseeable future. He keeps being re-elected. The author makes clear that he’s nobody’s fool.