· Hardcover: 640 pages · Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (June 23, 2020) Catherine Belton worked from 2007-2013 as the Moscow correspondent for the Financial Times, and in 2016 as the newspaper's legal correspondent. She has previously reported on Russia for Moscow Times and Business Week. In 2009, she was shortlisted for Business Journalist of the year at the British Press Awards. She lives in London. This very enthusing book addresses some of the most intriguing questions about Putin’s rise and rule. Question such as how it is that a supposedly peripheral KGB agent from Dresden gets to become president of the largest country on earth? If we agree with the popular explanation that Putin’s rise is in fact synonymous with the return of the KGB, how exactly did this happen? Why was Putin chosen? How do they rule? Do they really have significant influence on Trump and other Western political forces? There is an entire industry of books on Putin’s Russia, and most of them fail to address these questions. If they do address them, they just repeat commonly held beliefs without providing much evidence, based on the routine that if you repeat the mainstream view often enough, it gets treated by people as evident fact. Dresden Belton is different in that she addresses some of these central questions head on. Take for instance Putin’s early life in Dresden. She argues that although at first sight Dresden might appear a peripheral posting, in fact it can be important precisely because it is not Berlin. In Berlin you had the Americans, the British, the French, the West Germans, everybody. It was the spy capital of the world. Dresden was peripheral, deep inside the DDR, therefore you could work there undisturbed. What sort of work? Belton argues it was the tech capital of East Germany. Therefore smuggling tech from the West could be one possible task. She convincingly demonstrates how a number of Western firms were willing to contravene the Western tech embargo. She does not provide evidence, however, about how exactly Putin played a part in this. The other possible role she identifies as aiding terror groups in the West, including the Red Brigades. The evidence she presents for Putin’s responsibility in this is mostly anecdotal. However, it does seem plausible that Putin’s posting in Dresden was more significant than how it is made out to be. What supports this hypothesis the most is the widespread and deep network he was able to utilise later on in life, both as deputy mayor of St Petersburg and later as president. He knew a lot of people in both the East and the West. People with significant money and influence, who would stick with him for decades. Indeed, Belton explains very convincingly that the networks and schemes which had been set up to smuggle money to the West for operational purposes in the eighties were the blueprint for private money laundering during and after privatisation, which effectively meant the looting of the Russian economy. They were also useful in influence operations by the reinvigorated KGB/FSB network after Putin’s rise to power. Belton demonstrates with concrete names how these networks remained intact during the collapse of the Soviet Union, or were reactivated. St Petersburg Putin’s second life was as deputy mayor of St Petersburg. Belton does not explain how he came to such a high office after no more than a brief stint as external relations manager at the local university. It is often quoted that after returning from Dresden Putin was afraid he might have to work as a taxi driver. How does he so swiftly become such a key guy in St Petersburg? Belton hints at the KGB connection again. Rather than retiring from the KGB, as he did according to official accounts, she thinks he maintained those connections. First he offered his services to an opposition human rights lawyer, but she vigilantly rejected him. Then he worked briefly under Sobchak, an opposition leader and future mayor, at the local university, in charge of external relations. Sobchak then gets elected mayor, and makes Putin his deputy. Putin is simultaneously very efficient in his formal job, and develops connections to the Tambov gang, the local underworld, during the bloody infighting for control of St Petersburg port, one of the most important in Russia. He is represented in this period as being actively engaging both with these criminals and the self reorganising network of the local KGB. Importantly, Sobchak dies years later amidst suspicious circumstances, most likely poisoning, one week before Putin’s inauguration as President of Russa, having expressed his concerns about Putin rapid rise to the top job. This is possible, although it is well known that Putin had been very loyal to Sobchak. He had even organised a covert operation to smuggle him out of the country to Paris illegaly when Sobchak came under investigation for corruption. This does not exclude, however, that Sobchak had direct experience of how strong Putin’s drive, networks, and abilities are. Moscow The main weakness of the book is in failing to answer what is perhaps the most intriguing question of all: how did Putin become President? Belton rushes through these years without much explanation. He is called to Moscow by people with KGB connections, and the finds himself in a meteoric rise through the ranks to Prime Minister and then a replacement for Yeltsin himself on New Years Day 2000. Why Putin? Why a little known former KGB guy from the periphery, a former deputy mayor from outside of Moscow, where the KGB, later the FSB, is headquartered? Belton makes the context very clear. Yeltsin by this time is an alcoholic who had lost control of affairs to his daughter, Tatyana, and some powerful figures around her, such as oligarchs Berezovsky and Pugachev. Far more than half of Russian GDP is controlled by a handful of oligarchs, most of whom are household names even in the West. Apart from Berezovsky and Pugachev, they are Kohodorkovsky, Gusinky, and a few others. They had first become rich during the early privatisations at the beginning of the 1990s, when the West was pushing for rapid marketisation of Russia through advisors such as Jeffrey Sachs, who nowadays poses as a born again Leftie, and heads a think tank on sustainability, but back then was responsible for shock therapy in Russia and Poland. The infamous voucher or coupon privatization scheme failed miserably, enabling the first batch of oligarchs to loot state, party and Komsomol coffers. The moment when these tycoons became all powerful on a globally significant scale was the infamous loans-for-shares scandal before Yeltsin’s 1996 reelection bid, where they, together with the West, provided financial and media support to the highly unpopular and already ill Yeltsin to prevent the Communists from returning to power. In exchange the oligarchs gained ownership of Russia’s gigantic oil, gas and mineral wealth. This is how Khodorkovsky, himself most likely a criminal according to Belton, gains control of Yukos for instance. The scheme, which is well documented in another book, The Oligarchs by David E. Hoffman, left Russia effectively under the control of these tycoons. The state was falling apart, salaries were unpaid, infrastructure crumbling, corruption rampant, hundreds of millions of Russians were left impoverished, and Russia’s international standing was lower than ever before. It is in this context that Putin comes about as a saviour, who fixes things and restores order out of chaos. This helps us understand his popularity. However, we must also understand that the true story line is not that everything was fine before Putin, and Russia had been a stable and democratic country. Quite the opposite. The neoliberal, market oriented push for rapid marketisation had created one of the most unequal societies in the world, where a few interest groups had basically captured the state. The majority of Russians progressively lost faith in democracy, at least in this liberal form. The alternative would have been a more social democratic Russia, which would have created a stronger middle class, which in turn would have preserved democracy. The West was complicit in destroying Russian democracy before it ever really took off. Belton therefore sets out the context very honesty. She also explains well how other contenders such as the Communists, or Prime Minister Yevgenniy Primakov, were gradually sidelined by the KGB network. However, the most important question remains unanswered: why Putin? If indeed the KGB was powerful enough to push their candidate through against the oligarchs, the Communist and the Kremlin, why did they not field someone from their own top leadership? Belton fails to outline the sociology of this KG elite. Who were they? How did they manage to retain or regain power? Admittedly, this is a difficult task. The so-called siloviki, the “forces” as the Russians call them, operate in a secretive world. Yet more would have needed to explain why exactly it was exactly Putin they were pushing forward. Belton seems to hint that everyone underestimated the diligent, obedient and outwardly modest Putin, except for the forces. The Yeltsin clan saw him as a guarantor of their immunity against prosecution for corruption. Once in power, Putin indeed reliably delivered immunity to Yeltsin. The oligarchs, Berezovsky and Pugachev, saw him as a relatively weak caretaker figure they could control. They were wrong, as Putin moved in to use the armed forces and the law to squeeze them out along with the other oligarchs. Thus the Belton’s suggestion is Putin being the underestimated compromise figure, who surprised all. Plausible. Putin's Russia In some sense Putin had no chance but to become who he has become. Belton provides a detailed account of the Yukos affair, for instance. Khodorkovsky, who had himself become rich and powerful through criminal means, suddenly rebranded himself as a guardian of democracy, transparency and human rights. However, he was using his revenues from Yukos to buy to buy almost the entire Duma, from the Communists through the Liberals to the anti-Semite Nationalists. He was even powerful enough to arrest a Finance Ministry bill that would have taxed the oil industry, by having it voted down in the Duma. At the same time he was planning to sell Yukos to Exxon. The largest oil firm in Russia, which he had won only a few years earlier through corruption. It is quite obvious that Putin could not allow this. Neither the influence buying, nor selling out Russia’s natural resources to the former rival, the USA. Putin acted decisively. He used the law to arrest Khodorkovsky and his cronies. They had accumulated plenty of criminal past to enable him to do so. He also used former tax evasion by Yukos as a pretext to bankrupt the company and take it under state control. The state kept on asking for more and more tax arrears from previous years, until Khodorkovsky was forced to give up. The other oligarchs got the message and either emigrated, such as Berezovsky, Gusinsky and Pugachev, or started to cooperate with Putin, such as Abramovich. While Belton makes us understand why Putin acted, and why this made him popular, she is far from sympathetic to the Russian president. She repeats some of the usual allegations against him: most importantly that he was secretly responsible for everything from the Moscow apartment bombings to the Dubrovka Theatre and Beslan school hostage takings. It has never been conclusively proven that the FSB really had a hand in these. If yes, then they were willing to sacrifice their own people to boost their own popularity through what is often referred to as the Falklands Effect, a reference to Margaret Thatcher having started a completely needless war to win the elections. For Putin, this was allegedly Chechnya. Belton outlines how Putin gradually replaced the oligarch dominated Yeltsin era with its own setup, repeatedly referred to by Belton as KGB capitalism. In this system it is officially the state that revokes the wealth from the hated oligarchs, a popular improvement in the eyes of most Russians. However, what is on the surface state property is in reality very much under the control of Putin personally, as well as a handful of powerful figures connected to the FSB. The proceeds of these firms are often funneled out of the country for a combination of private gain and state influence operations. Western business elites are very complicit. Belton provides plenty of examples, from Swiss offshore finance, where the infamous Gunvor oil and gas trading company is registered and is allegedly partially owned by Putin. Another example is Londongrad, where Russian oligarchs have come to have their second home, their savings, their football clubs and their generous donations to the Tory Party. Examples of Western complicity are endless, from German cooperation in the North Stream pipeline and Gerhard Schröder’s lucrative loyalty to Putin, from French arms sales, to Berlusconi’s personal friendship with the Russian leader. Leading German financial institutions such as Deutsche Bank and Dresdner Bank have been proved to be complicit in money laundering, as have their Danish and Estonian counterparts. US, UK and Italian oil firms were complicit in taking part in Putin’s auctions after taking over energy firms from the oligarchs. The list really is endless. No matter what sanctions are enacted, Western business elites repeatedly normalise Russia, which gives Putin the impression that at the end of the day everyone is for sale in the West. Is he wrong about this? Trump Belton reinvokes the usual allegations about Russian financing of Western political forces. Some of these have been proven, such as the case of Austria’s Freedom Party. Others are strongly suspect but have never really been proven, such as Marine le Pen in France. Others claims are plain unsubstantiated, such as the case of Syriza in Greece. Some are ridiculous, such as the case of the St Petersburg twitter bots. There is no way these could have been anything more than a peripheral voice in America’s super noisy election campaign. The most important question, however, is that of Trump. Belton proves convincingly that he was kept alive financially by businessmen from the former Soviet Union when he was sinking in debt. There is no doubt about this, no matter how strong he tries to deny it. These men had had connections to the secret services, but even Belton agrees that it is far from obvious that there was a deliberate attempt to recruit Trump. The Russians were happy with him as he was, a candidate and to their great surprise a president sympathetic to Russia and Putin. There was no need to compromise him, he compromised himself. ✴︎ The book is extremely well written. It is hard to write about stuff that is by nature meant to be hidden, without creating the impression in the reader that the author is speculating. Belton pulls this off very well, mostly by making it clear when something is a fact, when it is circumstantially likely, and when it should be treated as no more than a rumour, which might be possible, or not. The other mistake she avoids making is bringing in too many names of personalities and companies until the reader gets lost in a maze. The text is surprisingly easy to follow, and you almost never lose track of who is who exactly, without sacrifice to oversimplification. This is an amazing achievement with such a complicated and merky subject, with so many players. All in all, definitely one of the few books really worth reading amongst millions of Russia books all written along the same theme of how super evil Putin destroyed an honest democracy. Thankfully, Belton avoids turning Putin into this omnipotent superhero, a kind of all-powerful bogeyman to Liberals akin to George Soros for the alt right.
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