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More
importantly, in his campaign to take on the tycoons, he could count
on the backing of ordinary Russians, fed up with greedy oligarchs,
mafia gangs, shady banks that could not be trusted with savings, and
other ills of “robber capitalism.” His preelection pledge to
“eliminate oligarchs as a class” resonated with the prevailing
attitudes among the mass of Russian voters, tired of the situation,
when crooked businessmen and corrupt politicians were left alone by
the police and prosecutors, while a small group of super-rich ran
the country. They voted for Putin in the hope that a strong leader
would be able to impose law and order and rein in corruption and
criminality. |
At the start
of his presidency Putin managed to ease the oligarchs’ grip by a
combination of different methods, including tighter regulation by
the state of economic activity; tougher curbs on the power of the
monopolies run by the oligarchs; efforts to set up a normal
executive branch comprised not of politically ambitious individuals
from different financial-industrial groupings and clans, but of
technocrats; and, finally, criminal prosecution or the threat of
launching criminal investigations to persuade the unwilling tycoons
to return part of their ill-gotten assets.
Three cases,
in particular, involving some of the more high-profile oligarchs,
produced a compelling demonstration effect, enough to cow the rest
of the business tycoons into submission. Two of these involved the
powerful media barons Boris Berezovsky and Vladimir Gusinsky and the
third, Vladimir Khodorkovsky, the owner of Russia’s giant oil
company Yukos.
Boris
Berezovsky, a friend of Yeltsin’s daughter and the mastermind of the
Kremlin’s election victories since 1996, rewarded for his services
with vast holdings in oil, aluminum, and media, became, arguably,
one of the biggest casualties of the “antioligarch war.” In a 1997
interview Berezovsky boasted that he and six other oligarchs owned
economic empires controlling 50 percent of Russia’s gross domestic
product. He also bragged about his role in persuading ailing former
president Boris Yeltsin to resign, and in promoting Putin into
office.
In the summer
of 2000, this previously untouchable insider, who had attained
fabulous wealth and influence during the past decade by getting
close to the Kremlin, suddenly resigned his parliamentary seat and
fled abroad. There is little doubt that he must have acted so
promptly out of self-preservation after having got wind of impending
charges of embezzlement and money laundering. He now lives as an
exile in London.
