Europe
Russia
Ousting the Oligarchs
In the first decade of post-Communist Russia, the “oligarchs”—tycoons who managed to amass vast fortunes in the heady first days of privatization—wielded enormous clout. But with the recent changing of the guard at the Kremlin, clouds began to gather on the oligarchs’ horizon. Shortly after his election, Vladimir Putin spoke of his intention to eliminate “the entire class of oligarchs,” who “like to fish in the muddy waters.” His words were soon followed by deeds: The tax police raid at the offices of the Media-Most company in Moscow on June 11 was the prelude to the arrest of its owner, Vladimir Gusinsky. [See “Regional Reports,” WPR, Aug. 2000.]
But Putin, an old KGB hand, deftly applied carrot and stick tactics. Shortly before his meeting with 21 magnates in the Kremlin on July 28, the government dropped criminal investigations of their companies. As for Gusinsky, he was again free to travel and went abroad.
In the opinion of the reformist, youth-oriented Komsomolskaya Pravda (July 19), “The era of the oligarchs is drawing to a close....arrests and revision of the privatization results are only a beginning….The days of the former business giants appear to be numbered.”
Sergei Markov, director of the Institutute of Political Studies in Moscow, was quoted in Komsomolskaya Pravda (Aug. 2): “Oligarchs are not and cannot be around any longer because they don’t have a niche anymore. They existed within the framework of the former political system. Their role boiled down to privatizing the state and performing multiple government functions since the government itself was in a state of semi-disintegration. The oligarchs were overconfident, they didn’t want to be just owners, they wanted to be masters. They have cut the bough on which they sat and have fallen into the hands of the powers that be.”
Russian media differed in their assessment of the July 28 Kremlin gathering. “The main achievement is that the meeting took place at all,” judged Natalia Ivanova in the centrist Nezavisimaya Gazeta (Aug. 5). It is not only that no documents have been signed—that is rather a boon for both businessmen and the government. It is impossible to break down at one session the pattern of business-government relationship that has been shaping up for years.”
The oligarchs had to beat a retreat, argued former Minister Yevgeny Yasin in the reformist weekly Moskovskiye Novosti (Aug. 1-7). “The meeting demonstrated that the government doesn’t need any formal agreements with business or even cooperation with it, or thinks that it doesn’t,” he declared. “Therefore, I conclude that the businessmen withdrew empty-handed.”
Writing in the liberal weekly Novoye Vremya (Aug. 6), Ilya Milshtein displayed a modicum of regret, if not support, for the oligarchs. “The oligarchs do not evoke compassion.…It is the country that evokes compassion. I would pin my remaining hopes on these individuals who have already learned to count their money although they have not dropped their habit of embezzling on a grand scale.”
