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The Information Specialist's Method: Klebnikov Quotes the Tycoon's Published Scint—-Which Be Later Bought, with the the More He Talked up His Eonnections, the Denials

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The Information Specialist's Method: Klebnikov Quotes the Tycoon's Published Scint—-Which Be Later Bought, with the the More He Talked up His Eonnections, the Denials I H of the Italian songs; but it was fascinating cover of a novel near Caines's head (it was cable foe). Instead Klebnikov gives us Z m to see him summarily and radically edit Elective Affinities). They tapped on the three hundred harrowing pages to convey his work for the requirements of a differ- glass to tr\' to get him to acknowledge that Berezovsky is the "godfather of god- ent venue. their presence. He told me later that after fathers." When Klebnikov first invoked the Caines is a genuinely .surprising artist. the third tap, he learned that if he sighed g-word, in a Forbes profile in December The same month, for the "Deli Dances" or shifted his weight slightly when they 1996, Berezovsky sued for libel. Recently, m series, where dancers peribrmed in knocked, he satisfied their demands and the Russian won the right to sue the Amer- Chashama's storefront window, he con- they stopped. ican magazine in a British court. With the c structed two installations. In one, wearing Some day, I have no douht, he will put appearance of Godfather of the Kremlin, CD shorts and an eyeshade, he simply slept however, it may be time for Berezovsky I- that lesson into play in a dance. At the (or tried to sleep) on a mat for two hours, moment, for November performances at to sue Klebnikov for impersonating his o with a small collection of over-the- The Construction Company, Caines is publicity agent. counter remedies for insomnia lined up preparing a trio to four Worid War I-era next to him. In the second, he slept—this songs by Hindemith, vvith tragic lyrics by ORIS ABRAMOVICH BEREZOVSKY time in pajamas, with a blanket—while the poet Christian Morgcnstern. The was bom in Moscow in January Hess, in a nightgown, meditated with her songs are rarely performed and, until B 1946", a baby boomer. Klebnikov back to the street; at half-hour intervals, Montano tackled them this year, they provides no details of Berezovsky's child- marked by an alarm clock, they exchanged seem never to have been recorded. When I hood or early adulthood, except to note places and activities. During the total of asked what the dance would look like, that his subject took a degree in electron- four hours that these installations lasted, Caines spoke of spiders, lobsters, bitter ics and computer science at Moscow's hundreds of passers-by stopped to com- drops, and black angels. "It's going to be Forestry Institute, a cover for work on the ment (and to smile) in perhaps a score of pretty dark," he said. I was not filled with Soviet space program. In 1970, Berezov- languages. Some of them remarked on the foreboding. Darkness is bearable, it is sky earned the equivalent of a doctorate smallest details, such as the names of the even to be welcomed, in an artist who is at the Mechanical-Mathematical Depart- herbal preparations. They studied the also a master of light. • ment of Moscow University. The previous year he had taken up an appointment at the Control Sciences Institute of the Sov- iet Academy of Sciences, where he would spend the next two decades, first as a researcher and ultimately as Correspond- ing Member. He wrote several dozen sci- The Information entific articles and three monographs about complex systems and information management (none of which are cited or Specialist quoted in Klebnikov's book). He helped to establish and directed a research team for the study of systems design, which was ^//STEPHEN KOTKIN called cybernetics—a term taken from the American Norbert Wiener, who coined it Godfather of the Kremlin: in the late 1940s for the science of infor- mation and information systems control. Boris Berezovsky and the Looting of Russia As we shall see, Berezovsky remains an hy Paul Klehnikov information specialist. {Harcourt, Inc., 400 pp., $28) Klebnikov presents the tycoon as the poster boy, if not also the explanation, for everything that has gone wrong in Sale of the Century: Russia's Wild Ride Russia since 1991: the "failure [sic] of democracy and capitalism," "the robbery from Communism to Capitalism of the century-,'' "the corruption and crony hy Chrystia Freeland capitalism epitomized by Boris Berezov- sky," and so on. But Klebnikov also works (Crown Business, 389 pp., $27.50) against himself, showing in some of his L ing tycoon, writes Paul Klebnikov, "once book's best passages the extraordinary told the Financial Times that he and six degree to which shady market practices MID THE COLLECTIVE hys- other financiers controlled 50 percent of became widespread already in the Soviet teria that passes for report- the Russian economy and had arranged period. He also weaves a discussion of the ing and commentary on Yeltsin's re-election in 1996." Yes, he did pre-oligarch patterns of oligarch behav- Russian affairs, perhaps no say that. But could such boasting have ior: the channels of secret financing for issue incites more misin- been remotely true? foreign Communist parties, the KGB shell Aformed commotion than that of "the oli- Klebnikov abjures the path of ridicule companies and banks in offshore loca- garchs." And among the oligarchs, the open betbre him. Nor does he have much tions, the foreign trade contracts rigged to king of the hysteria is Boris Berezovsky. time for Berezovsky's grand failures, such evade international laws, the old tax treaty The diminutive, excitable, eyebrow-danc- as the scheme to seize control of Russia's with Cyprus permitting KGB money laun- gas monopoly-$9 billion in admitted ex- dering operations, and the covert opera- STEPHEN KOTKIN'S new book, The Soviet port revenue—which came to absolutely tions windfalls derived from secret sales of Collapse, 1970-2000, will be published naught (aside from turning the well- Soviet timber and oil abroad at world by Oxtbrd Universitv Press next fall. connected George Soros into an impla- prices. What his book superbly demon- 34 : OCTOBER 9, 2000 strates, but does not argue, is that, despite to produce a lousy car that it took a U.S. or the population's demand for tbe cheap the many levels of discontinuity before Japanese factory to produce a good one." cars knew no bounds. It was by such and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Yet one person's white elepbant is another means that "red directors" and their asso- the crookedness and breakdown of the old person's fountain of gold. In May 1989, ciates "privatized" and stripped tbe assets and the crookedness and breakdown of when Mikhail (iorbachev revived and of state property across eleven time zones. the new are of a piece. expanded some of Kosygin's measures, Tbis happened long before anyone fi'om At the same time Klebnikov misses legalizing small capitalist-like enterprises, Harvard or Wasbington arrived to adxise the extent to which Berezovsl^ (along Berezovsky formed a "joint venture" with the "young reformers" about privatization. with Vladimir Putin) was a product of the Italian firm Logo Systems in Turin Conveniently, there was no worry tbat unsuccesstlil Soviet-era economic poli- and the general director of AvtoVaz. Joint without the revenue side (auto sales) the cies. In 1965, Prime Minister Aieksei ventures were meant to eneourage foreign cost side (auto production) would bring Kosygin tried to introduce greater flexi- investment and technology transfers, for on insolvency at AvtoVaz, since govern- bility for enterprises and other innova- which they received tax advantages and ments continued to issue Soviet-style tions to overcome sluggishness, but the could transfer profits abroad. They be- credits to tbe giant employer, or simply invasion of Czechoslova- allowed it not to pay its kia three years later eleetrieity bills. undercut the will for Berezovsky parlayed an experimentation. Instead, obscure joint venture to in the 1970s and 1980s, sell software into the the Kremlin placed a big country's most extensive bet on the computeri- network of car dealer- zation of production and ships, wbieh accounted planning, and on tbe for 10 percent of national acquisition of Western sales. Tbis alchemy re- technolog>', despite Cold quired more than con- War restrictions on trans- nections to a red director fers. Putin's KGB col- and Moscow officials, and leagues in East Germany more than a talent for set up front companies rudimentary flini tlam. and conducted remark- The early 1990s in Russia ably successfiil industrial was a time when Soviet- espionage. Completely in- era criminals came up dependent of this, Bere- from the underground, zovsky worked on making aping the gangsters in Soviet indu.strial processes pirated Ainerican videos, more efficient. riding Kalashnikov- Just as very few of the stuffed Land Cruisers KGB's numerous acqui- without license plates, sitions made it into lum- and launching grenade bering Soviet enterprises, attacks to expand "market so computerization failed share." Cash auto sales to take off. By the 1970s, were especially violent. close to 100 pereent of For security' and enforce- American firms with more ment, in the absence of a tban 500 employees had eivil service, and a reliable mainframe computers. In police and judicial system, the Soviet Union, only Berezovsky appears to one-third of the equiva- have employed a private lent enterprises did. By army of Chechens. By the 1980s, the Soviet Boris Berezovsky by Vint Lawrence for The New Republic 1993, tbey were besieged Union had 200,000 in a "'mob" turf war by microcomputers, while the United States eame an ideal legal instrument for a time- Russian gangs. On June 7, 1994, as Bere- had 25 million—a number that was about honored Soviet practice: free use of the zovsky's armored Mercedes 600 ambled to sk\Toeket.
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