- The October 25 arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the 40-year
old head of oil giant YukosSibneft, has raised an uproar in this country.
The possible loss of fortune by the richest man in Russia, estimated to
be worth eight billion dollars, is even seen by some, in dollar terms as
"the largest expropriation of Jewish property in Europe since the
Nazi seizures of the 1930's" 1.
-
- Assuming even that Khodorkovsky's arrest is tantamount
to the loss of his property, one must be careful with presenting the case
exclusively as proof of Russia's traditional anti-Semitism. Charged with
tax evasion, fraud and embezzlement, Khodorkovsky is set to face the court
in a few months and until the verdict is pronounced one must not rush with
hasty conclusions. Whether he is indeed guilty of anything - Russia's legal
system, especially in economic and financial matters, being at best unclear
- we shall see, but the whole case requires some attention for several
reasons.
-
- Khodorkovsky's case is of a special nature, if only because
of his huge fortune amassed quickly and under unclear circumstances which
is in itself a suspicious event in an impoverished country. Moreover, his
fortune is now seen by some as "Jewish property," making the
case doubly complex.
-
- As to the circumstances, which made Khodorkovsky a billionaire,
the same paper that published the said piece, wrote in its editorial of
the same day, that "though the origins of his (Khodorkovsky's) empire
are shady, he is, in some ways, Russia's first real capitalist". 2
It thus appears that Russia takes on not only the Jews but capitalists
as well, thus complicating the case even more.
-
- This calls for a more general comment.
-
- Russia has been claiming for years that it has been vigorously
transforming her economy from a "nationalized," or rather state-owned,
centrally planned and administered and militarized one, into a free-market
one. This, obviously enough and above all, means its privatization.
-
- Privatization, although somewhat camouflaged (the emerging
private sector was called "cooperative"), took off already under
Gorbachev. Its very twisted course was later largely pursued in so-called
postcommunist Russia. Although the manner in which it was done has been
a total failure, on paper it looks like an all-out success.
-
- In truth, no matter what the intention was in creating
the private sector, changing the socialist economy into a capitalist one,
especially almost instantly, is a next to impossible task. In a country
lacking any real national treasury or property laws, as some American Kremlinologists
rightly point out, this process was in fact nothing short of a massive
looting of state assets by "robber barons," as they are called
in Russia3.
-
- But who are these looters, or "robber barons",
"tycoons" and "oligarchs"? And why has Putin launched
his "vendetta," as is widely reported here, against them?
-
- Let's start with the "oligarchs", or "oligarkhy"
in Russian, roughly the equivalent of the term "tycoons" widely
used in the West.
-
- According to the Webster dictionary, "tycoons"
means "mighty lords" or "powerful industrialists" and
"financiers" in Japanese and Chinese. "Oligarch," still
according to Webster, stands for "any ruler of an oligarchy,"
which is "a form of government, in which the ruling power belongs
to a few persons," or "a state governed in this way," or
"the person ruling such a state."
-
- If so, then "oligarchs," unlike "tycoons,"
have nothing in common with "capitalists," just as "oligarchy"
have little to do with free-market economy. Yet "oligarchs" truly
exist. How did it come to this?
-
- In 1987 the Communist Party allowed its youth's organization,
the Komsomol, to launch the so-called NTTMs, or Scientific-Technical-Creative
Centers, which for a fee would assist state enterprises in research and
consulting.
-
- Khodorkovsky, then an engineering graduate and Komsomol
and CPSU activist, received 7,000 rubles from the authorities, created
one such NTTM business that was soon employing hundreds of young people
like himself. When the founding of "private" banks was allowed
shortly thereafter, he became, in 1989, a cofounder of one such bank, Menatep,
widely believed to be sponsored by the Communist Party and the KGB. Thanks
to his "connections" in the party and the KGB, many of whose
high-ranking officers were becoming "private businessmen," Khodorkovsky,
as he himself admits, began to "make money" 4:
-
- "Many people don't understand that you can make
big money from nothing here in Russia - only here, because this is a turning
point. Those who get in on time can do it."
-
- Khodorkovsky "got in on time." And once he
was in, everything else was a proverbial peanut. As is now well-known,
the so-called privatization of state property in Russia, although advertised
as open to all and officially completed by 1994, was in fact limited to
narrow elites, the Nomenklatura, or "Mafia," as the people called
them initially5. Khodorkovsky was by all means one of their most successful
and illustrious members. Had he acted alone he would have been nobody.
-
- How is it then that he and many other Jewish "oligarchs"
in Russia have recently been at odds with their former sponsors and comrades-in-arms?
-
- Boris Berezovsky and Vladimir Gusinsky, both of whom
now reside in the West, are silent on that, while Khodorkovsky may now
not even have a chance to shed some light. Therefore, we can only speculate
as to the reasons of this sudden downturn in the fortunes of the of "oligarchs."
-
- The only explanation is the probability that the transformation
of Russia's economy, which has never been real, had to be sold to the West
as truly genuine. And being the most credible in Western eyes, the people
who could do this best were the Jews. Believed to have been discriminated
against and not connected to the special services, they could be trusted
when saying that Russia's economy was indeed changing. And since, at the
same time, they were successful businessmen, their opinion sounded truthful.
-
- Now, however, Russia does not care about convincing anyone
of anything and may even abandon the transformation and therefore Jews
are of little use to her. Unless she decides to turn them into scapegoats
for all her woes. And Khodorkovsky is a perfect candidate for this role.
-
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- 1 Bruce P. Jackson: "The Failure of Putin's Russia";
The Washington Post, October 28, 2003;
- 2 "Pedaling Backward" (Editorial); The Washington
Post, October 28, 2003;
- 3 Stephen F. Cohen: "Failed Crusade"; W. W.
Norton & Company, New York 2000; p. 29;
- 4 Rose Brady: "Kapitalizm"; Yale University
Press, New Haven and London 1999; p. 56;
- 5 Joseph R. Blasi, Maya Kroumova, Douglas Kruse: "Kremlin
Capitalism"; Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London 1997; pp.
13-86;
- * Former Poland's Ambassador to Japan.
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- http://english.polonian.com/index.php?option=news&task=viewarticle&sid=19
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