The Role of Politics in Contemporary Anti-Semitism.
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. September 15, 1999
"That Jews control a disproportionately large share of the Russian economy and Russian media certainly has some basis in fact. Between 50 and 80 percent of the Russian economy is said to be in Jewish hands, with the influence of the five Jews among the eight individuals commonly referred to as 'oligarchs' particularly conspicuous. (An oligarch is understood to be a member of a small group that exercises control in a government. The five oligarchs of Jewish descent are Boris Berezovsky, Mikhail Friedman, Vladimir Gusinsky, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and Alexander Smolensky. The other oligarchs are Vagit Alekperov, Vladimir Potanin, and Rem Vyakhirev.) Perhaps the most famous (and simultaneously the most infamous) of the oligarchs is Boris Berezovsky. In common with most of the other Jewish oligarchs, Berezovsky controls industries in three critical areas: the extraction and sale of a major natural resource, such as oil, as a source of great wealth; a large bank (useful in influencing industry and transferring assets abroad); and several major media outlets (useful for exerting influence and attacking rivals). He also controls a significant share of the Aeroflot airline and the Moscow automobile industry."

Red Mafiya: How the Russian Mob Has Invaded America.
New York Review of Books, November 16, 2000 [book review, posted at Center for Defense Information/Johnson's Russia List]
"Whatever the American laws, a successful campaign against Russian mobsters will require the cooperation of other governments, particularly those of Russia and Israel, the two countries that are now the principal residences of most Russian crime bosses ...'Of all the nations where the Russian mob has established a presence, none has been more deeply compromised than the State of Israel,' [Robert] Friedman writes, adding that the Russian mafia has 'become a grave threat to the stability of Israel.' Although this may be a bit hyperbolic, the Russian mafia does have a strong, safe base in Israel -- a story that American and Israeli journalists have largely overlooked. One FBI report observes, for example, that most members of Mogilevich's criminal organization have Israeli passports. And Jonathan Winer told Friedman (when Winer was still the State Department's crime expert), 'There is not a major Russian organized crime figure whom we are tracking who does not also carry an Israeli passport.'"

'Jews Are Fighting and the Whole Country Has To Watch' Jews in Power or Jewish Power? The Captains of Russia's Post-Communist Economy Invited Uneasy Questions,
[Jewish] Forward, September 13, 2002
[Review of: The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia, by David E. Hoffman],
"Sometime during the autumn of 1996, a small group of the most powerful men in Russia gathered in a villa on Moscow's Sparrow Hills district and worried aloud about antisemitism. They were Russia's famous 'oligarchs,' men who, in the aftermath of communism's fall, ran banks, oil companies, television stations and, increasingly, the country, and they had reason to worry: Most of them were Jews. 'In earlier years, when the moguls gathered to talk or make deals, when they dined in the villa on Sparrow Hills, or when they entered the Kremlin to warn Yeltsin, they were largely hidden from public view,' writes former Washington Post Moscow correspondent David E. Hoffman in his recent book, 'The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia.' But in the autumn of 1996, it was no longer possible to conceal their ambition and their presence in the highest councils of the state. They worried, among themselves, about a backlash. The threat of an antisemitic uprising never materialized. The oligarchs, and Jews in general, are frequent targets of the nationalist press, and extremist firebrands still occasionally call out their names in public, but the Russian street has yet to take up calls for their blood ... If the book has a flaw, however, it is in not answering one of the central questions it raises: Why is it, and what does it mean, that so many of these men - men who ruthlessly acquired and manipulated Russia's resources and, for a time, its government - are Jewish? Of the six main characters in the book, four are Jews: Boris Berezovsky, now exiled and wanted at home for corruption, who at one point owned everything from auto-makers and airlines to banks and a TV network and earned the moniker 'Godfather of the Kremlin'; Vladimir Gusinsky, banker turned media-magnate whose quarrels with President Vladimir Putin sent him into exile; Alexander Smolensky, perhaps Russia's most notorious banker, the collapse of whose bank in 1998 wiped out thousands of people's savings, and Mikhail Khodorkovsky, leader of Russia's second-biggest oil company, who survived political scandals and the collapse of his own bank. The other two - Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov and reformist-politician-turned-energy-czar Anatoly Chubais - are not Jewish, though that hasn't stopped nationalists from making accusations about Jewish heritage. (The book's index, meanwhile, contains at least another 25 prominent Russian Jews, including tycoons Roman Abramovich, Pyotr Aven and Mikhail Friedman and politicians Yegor Gaidar, Boris Nemtsov, Yury Skuratov and Bella Zlatkis.) They were, by and large, men who learned early how to manipulate the system. Gusinsky bought copper wire on the black market to make the bracelets that funded his first fortune. Berezovsky did a brisk shuttle trade in German cars and Italian computers. Khodorkovsky used connections in the Communist Youth League to finagle lucrative software contracts ... . But by 1996, some of the oligarchs were beginning to worry. Nationalist politicians on the left and right were decrying what they called the theft of Russia's industry and the 'oligarch Yids' who engineered it ... Between them, Berezovsky and Gusinsky controlled the country's two biggest television stations, the leading news radio station and several of the largest newspapers and magazines. The fact was that the media in Russia was controlled by Jews; antisemites didn't really care which Jews in particular. Even mainstream politicians such as former Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin didn't really like the idea; when Berezovsky and Gusinsky were embroiled in one of their public quarrels, broadcast for all to see on their respective television stations, Chernomyrdin said, 'Two Jews are fighting and the whole country has to watch." For anyone familiar with Russian history, the road from scandal to pogrom would have seemed perilously short. Awareness of that history led the oligarchs in contradictory directions. On that fall evening in Sparrow Hills, the attendees - Berezovsky, Friedman, Gusinsky, Khodorkovsky and Smolensky - collectively decided that masking their Jewish identities would be the best option. A non-Jewish oligarch, Vladimir Potanin, was chosen to be their public liaison to government. Berezovsky was soon seen wearing a cross and attending Russian Orthodox churches. Still, no matter how hard they tried to distance themselves from Judaism, until very recently a glance at their passports would have given them away [i.e., Israeli passports]. And yet less than a year earlier Friedman had joined Gusinsky and a handful of other prominent Jewish businessman in organizing the Russian Jewish Congress. Outwardly, the congress's aim was that of any Jewish group anywhere - to support synagogues, schools and other religious and cultural activities. But, according to Boris Usherenko, a Russian actor turned Jewish activist and journalist who documents his stint as the first executive secretary of the Russian Jewish Congress in his self-published book, 'My Jewish Fate,' fear of antisemitism also played a part. At one of the congress's early planning sessions in late 1995, Usherenko writes, the founders' purposes were bluntly, if awkwardly, put. 'Fiery speeches were made. [Chief Rabbi Adolf Shayevich] inspiringly contrasted the depressing past with the shining future. [Gusinsky] expressed his nostalgia for the old rusty pipe he used as a boy to beat antisemites. I remember [one attendee's] fierce defense of his ideal - Jews with machine guns.' It was not, however, the first time Jews were attacked for being at the vanguard of a tumultuous revolution. Before and after 1917, nationalists pointed to the heavy Jewish presence in the Bolshevik leadership, from Trotsky on down. Even today, Lenin's guttural 'r' - the key element of what Russians refer to as 'the Jewish accent' - is a running joke among Russian satirists; at least one of Lenin's grandparents was Jewish, which, as the satirists point out, would have made him eligible for aliya [immigration to Israel]."

More information on the "Russian mafia" here and here.

Russia's Oil Czar Looks West,
Bloomberg Markets Magazine, July 2002
[Article about Jewish Russian mogul Mikhail Khodorkovsky, in pdf form]
"With 3.5 billion barrels of oil reserves, Priobskoye is a black gold mine for Mikhail Khodorkovsky, chief executive and main shareholder of AO Yukos Oil Co., Russia's second- largest oil producer ... Khodorkovsky is one of the so-called oligarchs who took control of state assets after the collapse of the Soviet Union and oversaw some of Russia’s worst violations of shareholder rights. Amid the country's financial crisis in 1998 and 1999, Khodorkovsky transferred stakes in Yukos subsidiaries to off-shore tax havens like the Isle of Man and Cyprus."

Open Russia Foundation,
[At least three of the posted four Board Members of this organization are members of international Jewry: Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, Dr. Henry A. Kissinger, and Lord Jacob Rothschild

THE MEN WHO REALLY RULE RUSSIA,
New Statesman, 08/28/98
"Boris Yeltsin's quixotic decision this week to bring back the prime minister he so ignominiously dismissed just five months ago makes him look like a modern-day tsar. But Kremlin omnipotence is a myth and its governments a constitutional facade -- the outgoing one has been aptly described as 'a virtual government'. The truth about Russia is that it is ruled, not by Yeltsin or any of his ministers, but by a handful of men with almost no formal political role: the half-dozen businessmen who call themselves 'the oligarchs' ... Their elder statesman is Boris Berezovsky, a mysterious mathematician-turned-car-salesman-turned-financier, who is the only one to occupy a state post, albeit a rather minor one. Three others head conglomerates with businesses ranging from banking to oil: Vladimir Potanin [of the 'oligarchs' here noted, only Potanin isn't Jewish], head of the Interros group, Mikhail Khodorkovsky of the Rosprom empire, and Mikhail Friedman of the Alfa group. Vladimir Gussinsky has a bank, too, but his strength is his vast media kingdom. Aleksandr Smolensky, the weakest of the gang, controls the huge but struggling SBSAgro retail bank. With the exception of Berezovsky, who seems to relish the limelight, all these men insist that they are humble businessmen, with diverging interests and no direct purchase on the Kremlin. This has a grain of truth: the oligarchs are not always united (indeed, their quarrels have gone so far as to include allegations that two of them once tried to have one another assassinated) and their influence over the government waxes and wanes. But even with these qualifications, it is striking to what extent Russia's oligarchs have grouped themselves into a capitalist cabal beyond the wildest imaginings of the most fevered Soviet propagandist. In times of crisis, like the current financial meltdown, the oligarchs are ever at the state's elbow. Late in the night on Sunday 16 August, as cabinet ministers put the frantic final touches on the devaluation and default they would announce the next day, the oligarchs flocked back from their Mediterranean holiday homes to keep vigil in the White House, the seat of the Russian government. A few days later, as I waited all afternoon for an interview that never happened, I watched the oligarchs, en masse, troop from a meeting with one deputy prime minister, to a meeting with another, to a meeting with the prime minister himself. Collectively, they have been conferring almost daily with the Central Bank chairman. And while the financial turmoil has highlighted differences of opinion and of economic interest among the oligarchs, they seem to have taken a conscious decision to present the world with a common front ... This week three of the most powerful corporate empires -- Interros, Rosprom and Most -- announced they would consolidate their troubled banking arms into a single bank, to be owned and controlled equally by each member of the troika. Certainly, the oligarchs carry all the visible symbols of their quasi-ministerial status. Their sleek Mercedes and Land Cruisers all sport the blue flashing lights and special licence plates that the state issues to its highest officials, granting immunity from the traffic laws and traffic jams which hem in lesser Muscovites. Russia's corporate politburo had its economic genesis in 1995, with the loans-for-shares privatisation scheme, a bizarre programme that transferred control of some of Russia's choicest companies to a handful of corporate insiders at knockdown prices. But it took the 1996 presidential elections to elevate these barons into the nation's kingmakers. Less than six months before the ballot, Yeltsin's campaign was being run by feuding and corrupt Kremlin courtiers, and a communist victory seemed assured. But then, after a late-night meeting in an Alpine restaurant during the "businessmen's summit" -- the World Economic Forum conference in Davos, Switzerland -- the oligarchs stepped in. They masterminded and bankrolled Yeltsin's political comeback; they seconded their smartest executives to work flailhme on the elections; and they transformed their television stations into presidential propaganda machines. Their weekly meetings which included a rollcall detailing who had spent what on the president's behalf became the guiding force of Yeltsin's reelection drive. By the time Yeltsin had beaten the odds and triumphed over his communist opponent, the oligarchs had been born ... By choosing to surrender the electoral process to the oligarchs in 1996, the Kremlin created their political power."

[The Jewish Lobby's social engineering to veil popular recognition of what is happening in Russia:]
ADL, Russian Law Enforcement Exchange Information,
Anti-Defamation League, November 13, 2002
"The Anti-Defamation League has established a partnership with Russian militia officers, government officials, educators and non-profit leaders through 'Climate of Trust' (COT), a program aimed at fighting intolerance in the former Soviet Union through hate and bias crime training. In August of this year, ADL leaders and educators met with a Russian delegation during a weeklong visit to San Francisco. The in-depth training included visits to police stations, government buildings, courts, and non-profit agencies, where trainers from the San Francisco Police Department, as well as the San Francisco District Attorney's Office and ADL, spoke to participants about United States law and the structure of our justice system. Following that presentation, ADL shared its expertise and materials on combating hate groups and extremists, and trainers from the A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE ™ Institute demonstrated the need to educate children about bias and encourage adults to look at their own prejudice. In turn, the Russian delegation shared its efforts to combat and respond to acts of xenophobia and intolerance ... COT is organized by the Bay Area Council for Jewish Rescue and Renewal, BACJRR, and operates in cooperation with the United States Department of State and the Russian Federation government. Partners in this program include the Anti-Defamation League, The San Francisco Police Department, the San Francisco District attorney's office, as well as a San Francisco Superior Court Judge and an Administrative Law Judge from the California Department of Fair Employment & Housing. As a result of COT, new programs adapted from the hate crimes and tolerance curriculum were established in a number of Russian police academies and schools."

"World On Fire" by Amy Chua. A new book argues that when Third World countries embrace democracy and free markets too quickly, ethnic hatred and even genocide can result, by Michelle Goldberg, Salon.com, Jan. 13, 2003
"The case Amy Chua makes in 'World On Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability' is so clear and persuasive it almost seems as if it had been obvious all along. Yet her argument, that rapid switches to majoritarian rule and free-market democracy in many Third World countries benefit certain ethnic groups over others and lead to vicious sectarian strife, is quite new, if occasionally overstated ... 'World On Fire' is about a phenomenon Chua calls 'market-dominant minorities,' groups like the Chinese in Southeast Asia, Jews in Russia, whites in Zimbabwe and Indians in East Africa and Fiji. Market-dominant minorities control hugely disproportionate percentages of their countries' resources ... Jews make up a similarly tiny proportion of Russia's population, but of the seven 'oligarchs' who control virtually all of the country's business, six are Jewish ... It's enormously touchy to talk about the economic element of communal violence, especially regarding Jews, since rhetoric about one ethnic group exploiting another is so often a precursor to atrocity. But that's exactly why Chua's book feels so urgent. No matter how politically incorrect it is to talk about, her book makes clear that minority market domination is a reality in much of the world, one that's tied up in many ways with smoldering group hatreds and explosions of mass slaughter, and one that's made worse by Western policies. Chua, a professor at Yale Law School, is a careful, precise writer, and she makes it very clear that she's not blaming prosperous ethnic groups for violence directed against them, or blaming capitalism alone for fomenting genocide ... 'The point, rather, is this,' she writes. 'In the numerous countries around the world that have pervasive poverty and a market-dominant minority, democracy and markets -- at least in the form in which they are currently being promoted -- can proceed only in deep tension with each other. In such conditions, the combined pursuit of free markets and democratization has repeatedly catalyzed ethnic conflict in highly predictable ways. This has been the sobering lesson of globalization in the last twenty years' ... The reasons for Jewish economic success are more mysterious -- especially in Russia, where they've been repeatedly subjected to vicious pogroms -- and 'World On Fire' does little to illuminate them. Chua is less interested in how minority groups come to dominate than what happens when they do. She argues that when economic liberalization and democracy are rapidly introduced to countries with market-dominant minorities, the two forces necessarily come into conflict. 'Markets concentrate enormous wealth in the hands of an 'outsider' minority, fomenting ethnic envy and hatred among often chronically poor majorities,' she writes. 'Introducing democracy in these circumstances does not transform voters into open-minded cocitizens in a national community. Rather, the competition for votes fosters the emergence of demagogues who scapegoat the resented minority and foment active ethnonationalist movements demanding that the country's wealth and identity be reclaimed by the 'true owners of the nation.'"

Mark Rich Helped KGB Create Hidden Government,
Newsmax, Saturday, March 31, 2001
"Mark Rich, the most-wanted fugitive pardoned by former President Clinton, was a key figure in the Communist Party and the KGB's creation of an underground government that survived the break-up of the Soviet Union and still rules Russia today behind the scenes. As previously reported by NewsMax.com., in 1983, the year Rich fled the U.S. to avoid prosecution, he took advantage of the grain embargo imposed on the USSR by the United States because of their war in Afghanistan. Rich ignored the embargo and imported grain into the Soviet Union, winning friends in the Soviet hierarchy with whom he would ally himself when the Communist government collapsed. According to NewsMax.com sources, from then on Rich was guided in his business dealings 'by the Communist Party and KGB senior figures. Everybody in that carousel, commie and KGB got personal benefits ... commissions in Western accounts.' Thanks to the influence he gained from sharing his profits with Party and KGB officials, Rich was drawn into the inner reaches of the hierarchy that ruled the Soviet union and was included in the creation of the sinister, behind-the-scenes government that was designed to outlive the deliberate dismantling of the Soviet Union. According to Dr. Joseph D. Douglas, an expert in national security matters and a former official of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the Defense Department, Rich played an important part in the deception that allowed the old Communist apparatus to maintain its grip on Russia and the rest of the old Soviet Union after the so-called collapse of communist rule. In an interview with the current New American magazine, Dr. Douglas, an expert on international organized crime and its role in long-term Soviet/Russian strategy, made the startling revelation that "No revolution took place in Russia or the other Soviet "republics" that would account for the sudden dismantling of the Soviet state. Nothing forced the Communist Party of the Soviet Union [CPSU] to relinquish its monopoly on power. In fact, what the CPSU did was diversify its holdings, rather than dispense with its monopoly.' Douglas said that Communist Party bosses surreptitiously 'either created new parties, or took over the leadership of existing ones.' He said that years before the 'end' of the Soviet Union the CPSU and the KGB 'set up all of the structures of what they call the 'invisible party economy.' This was already going on in the early 1980s, even before Gorbachev came along with his 'reforms.'' Because of the hidden superstructure Rich and his KGB colleagues created, members of the Communist nomenklatura had put themselves in a position to become the masters of the new, "privatized" economy."

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     Turning to the nearby new capitalist nation of Russia, in 1997 the Washington Post noted that