In some 30-odd years, Russia has gone from Communism to an unrestrained free-market economy, and now incarnates an autocratic national-capitalism. Why? How? For whose profit did these brutally sudden mutations take place? Is there any logic to this tale that overwhelmed the largest country in the world and threw the balance of power off on a planetary scale? What were the behind-the-scenes forces that made it happen?
By unraveling the sometimes-bloody, often-dramatic and always-surprising events that have taken place in Russia during these years of upheaval, Thierry Wolton reveals what was happening behind the scenes.
It all started in the 70s, when the KGB, conscious of the failure of the Soviet regime, attempted to reform it from within and make it more attractive without, in order to bring in the foreign capital necessary to rescuing the USSR. Gorbachev’s glasnost and perestroïka in the 80s were planned and orchestrated by the KGB for this purpose, but these policies released uncontrollable forces that led to the fall of Communism in 1991.
After this failure, the KGB tried worked unceasingly to recuperate its lost power, but Boris Yeltsin’s opening up of the economy in the 90s brought new actors onto the stage, new forces that had to be reckoned with: the Mafia and the oligarchs who were monopolizing the country’s wealth. To win back its influence, the KGB gradually eliminated the democrats from positions of power, tied President Yeltsin up until they had him firmly in their grasp, and wound up establishing one of their own as head of state: Vladimir Putin.
In 21st century Russia, where power is as much economic as political, Vladimir Putin started out by reestablishing the State’s authority, before cornering the country’s wealth by placing KGB men at the head of the principal conglomerates. The country is now being run by a KGB oligarchy that wants only to preserve its power and continue to increase its wealth. The next master of the Kremlin will necessarily be one of them.
Thirty years of secret history that worn-out Communist bureaucracy to those of a secret police rechristened FSB, which now holds more power than the KGB ever did.