A-Infos (en) Italy, Sicilia Libertaria #471 - RUSSIA. Today's Oligarchs (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

But how was it possible that in a country where "real socialism" 
existed, where private enterprise was banned, a class of capitalist 
billionaires could form who control the economy of the largest state on 
the globe? Today's oligarchic Russia has its roots in the regime of 
corruption that had been present in the Soviet Union since the Brezhnev 
era and which continued to strengthen until the dissolution of the USSR. 
After the coup d'état of the summer of 1991, and the subsequent 
dissolution of the USSR in December of that year, Boris Yeltsin 
accelerated the processes of liberalization and dismantling of the 
Soviet economy that had already been initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev in 
the second half of the 1980s. Entire sectors of the Soviet economy were 
hastily liberalized and handed over to private ownership without a 
well-defined organic system for the transition from state ownership to 
the free market. Yeltsin is directly responsible for the affirmation in 
Russia of what has been defined as criminal and savage capitalism. A 
true Wild West atmosphere developed in Russia, with shootouts and the 
physical elimination of rivals competing for state-owned assets. From 
the prevailing chaos, the oligarch system emerged, an elite that had 
formed and enriched itself through currency trafficking and smuggling 
during the Soviet Union. The oligarchs originated as politicians, 
officials, and managers of public companies who had complete freedom to 
act and trade with the capitalist West during the long years of the Cold 
War, smuggling products into the USSR that were unavailable on the 
Soviet market and consequently accumulating vast amounts of capital. 
This elite, born and raised within the Soviet Communist Party, had and 
has the power to influence those who govern in Moscow.

In 1992, Yeltsin initiated the shock therapy of a rapid transition to a 
market economy. The Russian government privatized all sectors of the 
former Soviet economy, distributing vouchers convertible into shares to 
97% of the population. By 1994, 74% of Russia's GDP was already 
generated by the free market economy. The gap between the newly 
ultra-rich minority and the rest of the population was growing 
exponentially. The oligarchs who had enriched themselves during the 
Soviet Union were the only ones to hold enormous sums of money, in 
addition to having significant connections in the political apparatus of 
the new capitalist state, of which they were an integral part. After the 
dissolution of the CPSU and the Soviet Union, the majority of men and 
women in power remained unchanged: they had simply discarded their 
Soviet hats and donned the clothes of bourgeois politicians. In this 
period of political and economic chaos, the oligarchs, taking advantage 
of the economic crisis that had caused incomes to collapse by over 40%, 
hoarded the vouchers that the government had distributed to citizens. 
Citizens are happy to get rid of the vouchers, considered waste paper, 
to scrape together a few pennies and thus make ends meet. In this way, 
the oligarchs expropriate the population of their vouchers/shares and 
quickly seize control of the productive apparatus, factories, energy 
resources, and even the homes of Russian citizens.

At the end of the 1990s, Russia's GDP collapsed by more than 60%, with 
30% of the population living below the poverty line.

In those years, Boris Yeltsin, to address the economic crisis, took out 
large loans from the oligarchs. These loans were repaid with the sale of 
significant shares of the state-owned production system. The twelve 
strategic companies still in state hands were also sold. Yeltsin's 
policies, while disproportionately enriching the oligarchs, made the 
Russian state increasingly poorer, even leading to default in 1998.

The lifeline arrived in 1999 with the appointment of Vladimir Putin as 
prime minister. On December 31 of that year, Yeltsin resigned, and Putin 
was appointed acting president of Russia. Putin immediately took a hard 
line and promised to put an end to the rampant violence and corruption. 
In this way, he managed to surpass 52% of the vote in the presidential 
elections, and Putin has remained in power ever since, alternating 
between president and prime minister.

Unlike Yeltsin, Putin seeks to harness the oligarchic system under his 
control. He negotiates with them, pushing them to accept the role of the 
state in resolving their power disputes. Putin uses the oligarchic 
system to give the government a powerful weapon to operate outside the law.

Putin, bucking Yeltsin's trend, renationalized the strategic 
communications, oil, gas, banking, and military sectors. The oligarchs 
who owned these sectors, bought for pennies, were rewarded in the 
billions. The oligarchs of the Putin era increased significantly in 
number, instead of decreasing, becoming increasingly rich.

In the 2000s, Putin created several state holding companies in the 
aerospace, shipping, gas pipeline, railway and automotive sectors.

Oligarchs who agree to toe the line with decisions made by the Kremlin 
will receive maximum protection and safeguards.

Oligarchs who refuse Putin's offer of cooperation will be prosecuted for 
tax and financial crimes, with their companies seized.

Putin isn't dismantling the oligarchs' criminal system, but rather 
trying to govern it, obviously also serving the oligarchs' own 
interests. Under Putin, in the first ten years of his rule, average per 
capita income increased by a staggering 8% annually, and GDP grew by 539%.

Under Putin, the pride of Russia's great power is reborn, the myths of 
Tsarist and Stalinist rule are revived, the welfare state is 
reactivated, and the population is given a breath of fresh air after the 
terrible economic and social crisis of the Yeltsin era. All this in an 
autocratic and highly repressive regime that brazenly supports the 
nouveau riche.

Putin, during his long years in power, has left almost intact the 
criminal capitalism that governs Russia with the oligarchic system, a 
system consolidated in the 90s during the Yeltsin era, but which 
originated in what was once the Soviet Union.

Renato Franzitt

https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/wp-content/uploads/luglioAgosto2026_compressed.pdf
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Subscribe/Unsubscribe https://ainfos.ca/mailman/listinfo/a-infos-en
Archive: http://ainfos.ca/en