"Dermokratizatsiya" and "Prikhvatizatsiya": The Russian Kleptocracy and Rise of Organized Crime

Demokratizatsiya, Summer 2003 by Granville, Johanna

Klebnikov acquired tapes of intercepted telephone conversations between Berezovsky and Movladi Udugov (a Chechen deputy minister in the Maskhadov administration) that suggest that the Chechens' series of kidnappings of Russian and foreign visitors to the tiny Caucasian republic were contrived. Ostensibly as a crass publicity stunt, Berezovsky apparently arranged the kidnappings and later paid ransom to the Chechens to free the captives. Whereas other Russians traveling to Chechnya did so only under heavy security, Berezovsky frequently flew back and forth without even one bodyguard.

Klebnikov describes other shady incidents in which Berezovsky was apparently involved, including the attempt to murder Gusinsky (the "Faces-in-theSnow" incident in December 1994), the murder of Listyev (who sought to break Berezovsky's advertising monopoly with the television station ORT), the abrupt firing of Alexander Lebed as secretary of the Security Council in October 1996 for his attempts to curb corruption, the abrupt dismissal of Yevgeniy Primakov in May 1999 as prime minister, the bombings of Moscow apartment buildings in September 1999, and the promotion of KGB functionary Vladimir Putin to replace Yeltsin in March 2000 as Russian president.

As a scholar, Klebnikov carefully assesses his sources, citing only information that he has been able to corroborate. Because politics and business in Russia are often conducted orally, with a handshake, Klebnikov taped all of his interviews. He states:

In telling this story, I have tried to be conservative in asserting what I believe to be true. Throughout, my sources are noted to allow the reader to judge for himself their solidity or lack thereof. I have left a trail of my research, so that the reader may be in a position to decide for himself what to believe and what not to believe.12

Like Godfather of the Kremlin, Russian Mafia in America is also a careful investigation. The authors are James O. Finckenauer and Elin J. Waring. Finckenauer, a professor of criminal justice at Rutgers University, received a grant from the National Institute of Justice to study typical crimes committed in the United States by Soviet and Russian emigres. He traveled to Moscow in 1990 to discuss organized crime with Russian scholars at the Academy of Sciences. Waring is an associate professor of sociology at the Herbert Lehman College, City University of New York.

Finckenauer and Waring's key argument about Russian organized crime in America is perhaps not as provocative as it initially sounds. They write that the "Russian Mafia" is "first, not Russian; second, not a mafia; and third, not even organized crime."13 When they state that the Russian mafia is not "Russian," they simply mean that many emigre criminals hail from many of the other former Soviet republics, such as Ukraine, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia. Nevertheless, they are still Russian speakers, many of whom grew up in the Soviet system.

By stating that the Russian mafia is not a mafia, the authors beg the question: What is a mafia? The generic definition is "a secret organization composed chiefly of criminal elements and usually held to control racketeering, peddling of narcotics, gambling, and other illicit activities throughout the world." That definition does seem to fit Russian organized crime.