Berezovsky splits with Putin

[Chris Burford <cburford@xxxxxxxxxx>]

A major split in class alliances has become with Berezovsky's ostentatious
resignation from Parliament in protest against Putin's centralising policies.

Putin was  a creature of the combination of oligarch capital and media
monopolist power which set up his "Unity" party from scratch in a matter of
months before the presidential election.

The first signs of unease from Berezovsky was his own media carried
information about the harrassment of his rival Gusinsky. Today the
Washington Post quotes him saying.

                    ''I do not want to take part in this spectacle'' ''I
do not
                    want to participate in Russia's collapse and the
establishment of an authoritarian
                    regime.''
                     He
                    charged Monday that Mr. Putin had made ''strategic
mistakes'' in handling the
                    Chechen war, in attacking regional governors and in
pressuring Russian
                    businessmen.

Berezovsky it seems was not necessarily privy to the conspiracy to bomb
blocks of Russian flats prior to the opening of the chauvinist war against
Chechnya.

                    Mr. Berezovsky...
                    has vowed to build a ''constructive opposition'' to
Mr. Putin. He
                    confirmed  he intended to put his wide-ranging media
properties under a
                    single corporate roof, which could provide him with a
platform for still more influence.

                    Mr. Berezovsky's comments are significant because he
and a coterie of Kremlin aides
                    played an active part in selecting Mr. Putin as
successor to former President Boris
                    Yeltsin. Mr. Berezovsky also played a key role in
setting up a parliamentary majority
                    for Mr. Putin, creating a brand new party, Unity, that
has loyally backed the new
                    president.

                    ''The Duma...
                    has turned into a legal department of the Kremlin that
obediently rubber-stamps its
                    decisions,'' he told the newspaper Izvestia in an
interview. ''I cannot be a marionette,
                    and participate daily in a performance that I don't
like. I cannot get through to the
                    authorities, not on a single important issue.''

The ultimate mistake. How can Putin have been so tactless? What can he be
planning?

                    Mr. Berezovsky...
                    .. has been openly critical, starting in May, of Mr.
Putin's plan to crack down on the
                    regional governors, and of Mr. Putin's proposal to
remove elected governors. Mr.
                    Berezovsky has branded the proposals a rollback of
Russia's fragile democracy.

                    ''Everyone accepted it with hurrah, obediently,'' Mr.
Berezovsky recalled of Mr.
                    Putin's first announcement of the plan. ''In a short
time, I reversed the situation.''

                    Since then, the Kremlin has launched an all-out
campaign against another of the
                    wealthy tycoons, the media baron Vladimir Gusinsky,
and last week, prosecutors and
                    tax police announced investigations against several
other large Russian companies.
                    But it was not clear whether a coordinated campaign
had been launched against the
                    Russian tycoons, because in several cases the
prosecutors simply dusted off stale
                    allegations that had been aired earlier.

                    Mr. Berezovsky said Monday he takes the latest
campaign against business
                    seriously, and one of the reasons for his resignation
is to defend the group of
                    financiers who have become known here as the
''oligarchs'' against anticipated
                    attacks.

                    ''This campaign is well orchestrated and is aimed at
destroying major independent
                    businesses in Russia,'' he said. Mr. Berezovsky has
long held that the tycoons
                    should hold a preeminent position in Russian politics
and economics, and he has
                    repeatedly clashed with politicians who sought to
reign in the tycoons, such as
                    former Prime Minister Yevgeni Primakov and Mayor Yuri
Luzhkov of Moscow. Polls
                    show the public generally has held the tycoons in low
esteem and cheered attempts
                    to curb them.


                    Mr. Putin has sent contradictory signals about the
tycoons. In his presidential
                    campaign, he promised that none of them would enjoy
special connections to the
                    state, as they had in the past. More recently, the
Kremlin has targeted just one of the
                    tycoons, Mr. Gusinsky, whose media outlets were the
most critical of Mr. Putin. The
                    president and aides have said they do not intend a
major overhaul of the
                    privatizations during the 1990s, which put huge
factories, mines and oil companies in
                    the hands of the tycoons. But at the same time, in the
Gusinsky case, Mr. Putin has
                    shown a willingness to selectively attack them.


This is class struggle by surrogate in the post-socialist Russian
Federation. Berezovsky is fighting for the privileges of oligarch finance
capital. He is fighting to defend a decentralised federation in which
regional governors have considerable power and oligarch firms can wheel and
deal.

It is surprising that Putin has allowed such a major figure to defect
without an alternative plan. He has been studiously courting the communists
who have backed him in the lower house in trying to clip the wings of the
governors. It is not clear how valuable allies such as Primakov will now
be, since Putin benefitted so much by the way the media targetted Primakov,
who was the only viable alternative to himself as President. Primakov has
presumably bought the anti-corruption rhetoric. The communists are
presumably trying to shift Putin to a left nationalist position, and are
not attacking Putin on Chechnya too loudly, whereas Berezovsky is sceptical
about chauvinism in Chechnya and probably would not object to too much
authority.

Putin will not forget his decades in the KGB and presumably dreams of a
classless Soviet Union. But the battle for which class the new regime will
solve is now wide open. Will Putin be clever enough to survive as a
Bonapartist figure, against a subversive media, as losses mount in Chechnya?

Chris Burford
London