Gary Kasparov has an interesting opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal today comparing Putin’s Russia to the Godfather.
Read in the context of a Mario Puzo novel, Russia’s actions make complete sense. And, considering the speed with which biznesmeni took over Russian life after the collapse of Communism, it follows that Russia Inc is now being run along mafia lines.
The web of betrayals, the secrecy, the blurred lines between what is business, what is government, and what is criminal — it’s all there in Mr. Puzo’s books. A historian looks at the Kremlin today and sees elements of Mussolini’s “corporate state,” Latin American juntas and Mexico’s pseudo-democratic PRI machine. A Puzo fan sees the Putin government more accurately: the strict hierarchy, the extortion, the intimidation, the code of secrecy and, above all, the mandate to keep the revenue flowing. In other words, a mafia.
If a member of the inner circle goes against the Capo, his life is forfeit. Once Russia’s richest man, Mikhail Khodorkovsky wanted to go straight and run his Yukos oil company as a legitimate corporation and not as another cog in Mr. Putin’s KGB, Inc. He quickly found himself in a Siberian prison, his company dismantled and looted, and its pieces absorbed by the state mafia apparatus of Rosneft and Gazprom.
The Yukos case has become a model. Private companies are absorbed into the state while at the same time the assets of the state companies move into private accounts.
Alexander Litvinenko was a KGB agent who broke the loyalty code by fleeing to Britain. Worse, he violated the law of omertà by going to the press and even publishing books about the dirty deeds of Mr. Putin and his foot soldiers. Instead of being taken fishing in the old-fashioned Godfather style, he was killed in London in the first recorded case of nuclear terrorism. Now the Kremlin is refusing to hand over the main suspect in the murder.
Mr. Putin can’t understand Britain doing potential harm to its business interests over one human life. That’s an alien concept. In his world, everything is negotiable. Morals and principles are just chips on the table in the Kremlin’s game. There is no mere misunderstanding in the Litvinenko case; there are two different languages being spoken.
Don Putin (subscription required).
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