Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T03:10:23.995Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Russian Oligarchs, from Yeltsin to Putin

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2015

Chaim Shinar*
Affiliation:

Abstract

Yeltsin’s oligarchy1 was 15, or even 20 or even 50, very rich people who featured all the time in the mass media. They were very ambitious. They were prepared to go openly i1nto the government or Duma, or to finance a political party. They were well known because they were popular. However, it would be difficult to argue that they controlled any part of the real economy.

Type
Articles
Copyright
© Academia Europaea 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References and Notes

1.The origin of the term ‘oligarchy’ is Greek: it means government by the few. Aristotle introduced the use of the term as a synonym for rule by the rich; Kryshtanovskaya applied it to the idea that the tycoons were becoming an oligarchy – a small group of men who possessed both wealth and power, in D. E. Hoffman (2003) The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia (New York: Public Affairs), p. 321.Google Scholar
2.The theoretical case for privatization rests in part on removing enterprises from political oversight, so that managers’ decisions are motivated by profit, not by whatever motivates politicians, in B. Black, R. Kraakman and A. Tarassova (2000) Russian privatization and corporate governance: what went wrong? Stanford Law Review, 52(6), p. 37.Google Scholar
3.Verdery, K. (2003) The Vanishing Hectare: Property and Value in Postsocialist Transylvania (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press), p. 1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4.Kokh, A. R. (1998) The Selling of the Soviet Empire: Politics and Economics of Russia’s Privatization Revolutions of the Principal Insider (New York: S.P.I. Books, Liberty Publishing House), p. 186.Google Scholar
5.Hoffman, D. E. (2003) The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia (New York: Public Affairs), p. 186. see also: M. D. Intriligator (1996) Reform of the Russian economy: the role of institutions. International Journal of Social Economics, 23(10/11), pp. 58–72; L. Shevtsova (2001) Russia’s hybrid regime. Journal of Democracy, 12(4), pp. 65–70; A. Aslund and M. Brill Olcot (1999) Russia after Communism. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, p. 14; The Economist (2003) Special Report: Putin’s way – the Russian elections. The Economist, 369(8354, 13 December), p. 22.Google Scholar
6.Medvedev, R. (1998) A new class in Russian society. Russian Social Science Review, 39(5), p. 61. Currently, the US government is pouring money into failing companies in order to prevent their downfall.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
7.Aslund, A. (2007) Russia’s Capitalist Revolution: Why Market Reform Succeeded and Democracy Failed (Peterson Institute for International Economics, Washington, DC), p. 90.Google Scholar
8.Hoffman, D. E. (2003) The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia (New York: Public Affairs), p. 203.Google Scholar
9.Handelman, S. (1995) Comrade Criminal: Russia’s New Mafiya (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press), p. 139.Google Scholar
10.This section is based on: D.E. Hoffman (2003) The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia (New York: Public Affairs), pp. 11177http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/711022/Boris-Berezovsky#tab=active~checked%2Citems~checked&title=Boris%20Berezovsky%20--%20Britannica%20Online%20Encypedia; Moscow, Rich in Russia, October 2003, http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/moscow/smolensky.html; Moscow, Rich in Russia, October 2003, http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/moscow/berezovsky.html; J.A. Corvin (1998) The decline and fall of Vladimir Vinogradov. American Russian Law Institute, RFE/RL, 22 December 1998, p. 1; (2010) Year in Review 2001 Gusinsky Vladimir. Encyclopedia Britannica 2007 Deluxe Edition (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 2010).Google Scholar
11.Money, at this time, was of two kinds: cash (nalichnye) and nominal (beznalichnye). Only cash was money in the real sense; bank credits were necessary for purely paper transactions between state organizations. An enterprise deducted what it needed for the pay of its employees, whose rates of remuneration were strictly regulated by the state, and no other source of income was possible than the one that came from a regular salary or bonus payment, in O. Kryshtanovskaya, O and S. White (1996) From Soviet Nomenklatura to Russian elite. Europe-Asia Studies, 48(5), pp. 711733; A. Aslund (1992) Post-Communist Economic Revolutions: How Big a Bang? (Washington, DC: The Center for Strategic and International Studies), p. 30; Cash was much more valuable and sought after. By some estimates, a cash rouble was worth ten times a non-cash rouble, in D.E. Hoffman (2003) The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia. (New York: Public Affairs), p. 109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
12.Hoffman, D. E. (2011) How’d we do covering the revolution? Foreign Policy, 187), (Jul/Aug), p. 5.Google Scholar
13.Brzezinski, Z. (2008) Putin’s choice. The Washington Quarterly, 31(2, Spring), p. 108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
14.Shevtsova, L. (2003) Whither Putin after the Yukos affair. The Moscow Times (27 August), p. 7; in R. Sakwa (2008) Putin and the oligarchs. New Political Economy, 13(2, June), p. 188.Google Scholar
15.Kryshtanovskaya, O. and White, S. (1996) From Soviet Nomenklatura to Russian elite. Europe-Asia Studies, 48(5), pp. 711733.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
16.Markus, S. (2007) Capitalists of all Russia, unite!. Polity, 39(3, July), p. 285.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
17.Remnick, D. (2010) Gulag lite. New Yorker, The Talk of the Town, 86(41, 12/20), p. 2.Google Scholar
18.Baker, P. and Glasser, S. (2010) The billionaire dissident: an oil tycoon in a glass cage aspires to be the Russia’s next Sakharov. Foreign Policy, 179(May-June p. 64; D. Remnick (2010) Gulag lite. New Yorker, The Talk of the Town, 86(41, 12/20), pp. 1–2.Google Scholar
19.Land, T. (2004) Putin pursues Russia’s oil oligarchs. Contemporary Review, 285(1663, August), p. 69.Google Scholar
20.Christian Science Monitor (2003) Russia’s muzzled democracy. Retrieved April 27, 2004 from Christian Science Monitor Web site: http://www.csmonitorservices.com.Google Scholar
21.Baker, P. and Glasser, S. (2010) The billionaire dissident: an oil tycoon in a glass cage aspires to be the Russia’s next Sakharov. Foreign Policy, 179(May-June), p. 62.Google Scholar
22.Ames, M. and Berman, A. (2008) McCain’s Kremlin ties. The Nation, (October 20), p. 20.Google Scholar
23.Meyer, H. and Matlack, C. (2011) Another tycoon defies the Kremlin. Bloomberg Businessweek, Global Economics, 26 September – 2 October, pp. 13.Google Scholar
24.Cunningham, B. (2010) Opposing Putin. The New Presence, (Winter), p. 38.Google Scholar
25.Aron, L. (2005) Whither Putin? Commentary, Letters from Readers, 119(1, January), p. 10.Google Scholar
26.Politkovskaya, A. (2008) La Russie selon Poutine (Paris: Gallimard, 2005), p. 139. in A. Rothacher (2008) Putin’s Russia: spy rule and post-Soviet transformation. European Political Science, 7(4, December), p. 545.Google Scholar