Godfather of the Kremlin: the Life and Times of Boris Berezovsky

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Paul Klebnikov tells the incredible story of Boris Berezovsky, a one-time Russian car dealer who assembled a huge--and illicit--fortune after the collapse of Communism. "This individual had risen out of nowhere to become the richest businessman in Russia and one of the most powerful individuals in the country," writes Klebnikov, a respected reporter for Forbes. "This is a story of corruption so profound that many readers might have trouble believing it." Yet Godfather of the Kremlin is a careful work of journalism in which Klebnikov documents the business dealings of a man who once bragged to the Financial Times that he and six other men controlled half of the Russian economy and rigged Boris Yeltsin's reelection in 1996. Berezovsky survived both an assassination attempt and a murder investigation, and paved the way to power for Vladimir Putin. He and the other crony capitalists of post-Soviet Russia like to rationalize their deeds, writes Klebnikov: "Whenever I asked Russia's business magnates about the orgy of crime produced by the market reforms, they invariably excused it by pointing to the robber barons of American capitalism. Russia's bandit capitalism was no different from American capitalism in the late nineteenth century, they argued." Yet nothing could be further from the truth: Carnegie, Rockefeller, and their peers transformed the United States into an economic superpower. Berezovsky, on the other hand, has "produced no benefit to Russia's consumers, industries, or treasury." It's not that he didn't have an opportunity. To pick one example among many, he took over Aeroflot when it had a monopoly position in a booming market. But the company barely grew, and instead experienced myriad problems. Berezovsky controlled many businesses, but he was a lousy business manager; his only authentic success--as an auto dealer--depended on collusion. His real skill is shady dealmaking, especially with corrupt government officials. That's the way to success in modern Russia, as this well-told but troubling book reveals. --John J. Miller

From Publishers Weekly
After devoting two pages to conspiracy theories about who master-minded the 1999 Moscow bombings that led to Russia's current war against Chechnya, the author admits that it is "all speculation." Such bouts of conjecture mar an otherwise worthwhile examination of how a few tycoons have managed to gain extraordinary power in contemporary Russia. While the title of the book focuses on one of these moguls, the author casts a wider net. Klebnikov, a senior editor at Forbes, does a decent job of describing how Russian political leaders were unable to fashion effective law and economic policy after the Communists lost power in 1991Aand how lobbyist Berezovsky and his cronies employed methods such as pyramid schemes to fuel their rise. The "oligarchs"ABerezovsky, in particularAthen used this economic power to obtain shares in some of Russia's largest companies. As he notes, "It was clear who the losers were: the average Russian." It's difficult to argue with Klebnikov's conclusion that Moscow must limit the power of these businessmen in order to create true democracy. But his hard work occasionally hurts him: he has enough interviews to make interesting hypotheses, but not enough hard evidence to make conclusions about who is responsible for the political violence that has plagued Russia during the last decade. Readers looking for such answers would be better served by thumbing through another new work, Chrystia Freeland's Sale of the Century (reviewed below). Photos not seen by PW. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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