The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia by David E. Hoffman

The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia Reviews

• 
  Mike

  Like Hoffman's book The Dead Hand which concerns the Cold War and the Soviet's efforts at biological and nuclear weapons, The Oligarchs both boasts and suffers from Hoffman's skills and lack thereof in certain areas. There is no question that Hoffman is an astute researcher: in both books, he has dug up information that perhaps no other author writing in English has ever taken into account and there is probably no better, more-detailed, a book on the rise of the core group of oligarchs in Yeltsin's new Russia in any language, Russian included. Hoffman's narrative of these new scions of industry and their rise to power and wealth spares no details and provides nuanced, pithy, descriptions of all the players involved. You feel like you get to know these guys over the course of the book. Hoffman, as he has lived in Moscow for years apparently and also wrote the aforementioned book on the later years of the Cold War and fall of the Soviet Union, is also able to place the decade of the oligarchs becoming some of the world's richest men and the turn towards a relentless free market in Russia in greater context in the scope of Russian/Soviet history.
  
  So what's not to like? Well, where Hoffman suffers in both books is a bad habit of restating things over and again and also in some cases not going into enough detail on something interesting while instead wasting print going into something not so interesting, even if he's already touched on it once or twice already. A good example is how early into the book he explains what Gosplan was about three times in the spane of around 50 pages. Granted, I know a good amount about Russian history myself and read fluent Russian, but still there are places where you have to question what gets great attention and what doesn't. In the case of The Dead Hand Hoffman made some minor factual errors too and my background in Russian economics isn't that great so I can't say I spotted anything in this book, but there could be similar errors. The ones he made on the Cold War were small and fairly unimportant, but still things he could have fact-checked before the book went to press (an example being how he describes Chequers Court as Margaret Thatcher's country estate when in fact it's a retreat for the prime minister and owned by the government, much as is Camp David in the USA). Small things, but in books so deep you have to wonder how many errors of this sort lurk about.
  
  This is, therefore, really more of a three-star book than a four-star one, but I will be kind today: it's the best work in English of its kind and probably overall the least biased, when you factor in Russian works on the same topic. It's necessary reading for anyone interested in how the current Russian economy developed under Putin and why things evolved as they did under Yeltsin. So I have to recommend this book—and I recommend the one on the Cold War, too—but wish Hoffman was just a bit better a writer than he is: he's established himself as the core writer in English on these topics in any depth so it would be nice to have someone of the caliber of, say, Stephen S. Hall (science journalist who wrote A Commotion in the Blood) in that position.
• 
  Max Berendsen

  Review to follow
• 
  Maru Kun

  This fascinating graph from
  Thomas Pikkety's
  blog showing the change in share of wealth for the richest ten percent of the population in Russia, France and the US tells us in one picture the same story outlined in this book.
  
  The graph also has something interesting to say about the US.
  
  One thing common to the rise of each of the Russian Oligarchs discussed in this book is that they exploited a lack of any understood or enforced law or regulations around the ownership of state property post the collapse of communism.
  
  An Oligarch might, for example, set up their own organisations within a state company to buy coal, gas, nickel or whatever at state prices and then export these goods overseas at world market prices and pocket the difference. This would normally require them to have overseas contacts, which might well have come through the KGB.
  
  In this respect the position of a Russian Oligarch, who knows no law, can be contrasted with that of some American businessmen who are bound by law, but who simply pay lobbyists to change it for them, or with others, like Trump and his pals, who simply think they are above the law.
  
  Overall this book is a great guide to stealing anything that isn't nailed down if you are in a position of political influence. We can be sure the Oligarchs in it who haven't yet been imprisoned or murdered will be passing on its lessons to their friends in the GOP.
• 
  Ilya Inozemtsev

  Название не должно пугать — это монументальный труд о периоде ельцинской власти в новейшей России: от падения Союза до прихода к власти Путина. Если, к примеру, «Все свободны» рассказывали о единственном эпизоде правления Ельцина, то «Олигархи» описывают все ситуации. Из-за такого широкого контекста многие вещи о современной России становятся понятны, тем удивительнее, что книга была написана почти двадцать лет назад. У последнего издания есть важное послесловие о Ходорковском и судьбе героев-олигархов, но, опять-��аки, не стоит делать акцент на этом термине — книга Хоффмана об олигархии, как о типе правления, а не как о бизнес-магнатах, с которым этот термин стал тождественен.
• 
  Frank Stein

  This book is a fascinating, if overlong, look at the corrupt billionaires that emerged unexpectedly out of the collapse of the Soviet state. Although the sprawling cast of secondary figures in the book summons the inevitable comparison to a Russian novel, David Hoffman focuses on just a handful of major characters, all of whom seemed destined for anonymity when Gorbachev began his "perestroika" campaign in 1985.
  
  Vladimir Gusinsky was a failed theater director driving a taxi when he decided to start a "cooperative" (or private company) to sell copper bracelets, which he then parlayed into a banking and media empire centered around Russia's one independent television station, NTV. Alexander Smolensky was a former soldier and periodic anti-Soviet rebel (he printed his own Bibles for sale, although he was Jewish) who began some construction work for the Moscow government on the side, which he soon transformed into an industrial and especially banking empire. Boris Berezovsky was a hyperkinetic scientist at the Institute for Control Sciences when he began importing some Fiats for a state company and then started assembling an automobile empire. Mikhail Khodorkovsky was a "komosomol" or youth group, leader in the Mendeleev research institute, when he was allowed to create his own bank from which he got the funds to assemble the oil empire of Yukos. Hoffman also describes how Yuri Luzhkov, later Moscow mayor, and Anatoly Chubais, the economist and reformer, helped create the kind of government where these billionaires could flourish, often at the expense of the rest of the country.
  
  The oligarchs themselves had many similarities. Most were Jewish, and thus had been restricted from many careers and honors in the Soviet Union. Most were outraged at state control of their early cooperatives and thus created their own mini-banks to control their earnings, and it was from these banks that most of their profits emerged. Most relied on connections with early Communist leaders to attract government funds to their banks, or to give them control of state assets, and then earned a mint gambling on ruble fluctuations or exchanging underpriced Soviet commodities abroad. Most relied not so much on ownership of vital properties as extracting the profits and sending them to secret accounts. Finally, most of their banks were devastated in the 1998 Russian default, and then most were hounded by one of their own creations, Vladimir Putin, once he assumed power in 2000.
  
  Although Hoffman portrays the oligarchs with an understanding eye, he knows that much of what they did was detrimental to Russia. Tragically, however, they were often the only ones willing to resist the still powerful Communists or, later and too late, Putin. The book ends with Putin stealing NTV and driving Gusinsky from the country, but since it was published in 2002, it does not describe how Khodorkovsky was jailed on flimsy charges for over a decade by Putin, or how Berezovsky was driven from the country and possibly killed by Putin's agents.
  
  Whatever one thinks of the oligarchs, they reshaped one of the most powerful countries on Earth for almost a decade, and then were driven out by one of their own creations. It's a majestic and tragic story, well told here.
• 
  Morgan

  A super interesting and thorough overview of how the oligarchs rose to power during the demise of the Soviet Union. How these men were able to manipulate the failing system and be so forward thinking was absolutely incredible and mind boggling.
  
  While the information was fascinating, it was hard to keep track of all the individuals. The first part of the book gives the reader the background story of each of the oligarchs and then brings them together as their rise to power intertwines their stories. By the point they are all brought together it was hard to remember who went with what origin story. I felt like I needed an overview cheat sheet, especially since I read this book over two months.
• 
  Petr Zajac

  This book attracted me because I am from a post communistic country influenced by Rusia. David E. Hoffman very well described the transformation from Gorbacov’s perestroika to Yelcin’s privatisation till Putin’s post Oligarchs era. The transformation was driven by corruption and clientelism like in other post communistic countries. Autor mainly focused on six Russia tycoons. How they from nothing took ownership of Russia. How they influenced government. Live of actors in the book mainly ends with exile or death.
• 
  Masha

  Incredible compilation of history and firsthand accounts. I cannot stop telling people about all that I've learned.
• 
  Mubeen Irfan

  USSR was all but gone when I was a child and when I was able to decipher the conversations around me, Boris Yeltsin was the name that I heard the most. However, there was a very limited interest in Russian politics in Pakistan because the general population felt we have achieved our purpose of dismantling USSR and thus whatever turmoil is happening now in Russia, we can just sit back and let it slide by.
  
  It also did not affect us because we were a pro-American country and looked up to the US for everything, be it pop-culture or politics. Impact of all this was that I knew next to nothing about this huge country undergoing a massive change from communism to capitalism. The only Russia I knew was through Val Kilmer's amazing movie 'The Saint' where I got my flavor of Russian nationalism through the opening lines of a speech where speaker calls to the crowd in a play of words from a Shakespear's play, 'Friends, Countrymen, Russians!' and a deafening roar of the crowd which followed these lines...
  
  A lot of current interest in Russia is due to Putin and the rise of Russian nationalism through his efforts to bring Russia back to the center stage of world politics. But if you want to understand how Putin got where he is right now, you can find clues here in this book. The age of Russian Oligarchs which is roughly the 9-10 years starting from 1991 onwards, brought back that nationalism in their country which was discarded when USSR broke up. This book is a story of those Oligarchs and their grasp of wealth and power in the new Russia. This is an up close of the shock therapy of Chicago school of economists and how it ruined an entire country. A small group of Russians rigged everything in their favor and accumulated unseen wealth amongst themselves. These oligarchs are interesting characters who are sometimes colluding with each other to maximize their gains and other times at each other's throats, again for the same reason: to maximize their gains.
  
  Russian government affairs of 1990s are clouded in secrecy just like the entire history of USSR governance. This makes it very difficult to understand how actually these Oilgarchs accumulated this much wealth (the modalities) and a lot of sources & information is left desired in this book. The author has also acknowledged this fact too. It is a smooth read but I personally found very hard to keep track of all the Russian characters and their names.
• 
  Dan

  Overall solid history of the rise of Russian oligarchy and their effect on (and eventual entanglement with) politics from the fall of the Union to the rise of Putin in the early 90s. Hoffman is a sharp writer with a good eye for color detail.
  
  The first half holds short introductory blurbs for each oligarch, establishing how they got started. The second half is a unified narrative bringing these characters through the tumult of the 90s. This format makes the book feel shorter than it actually is and condenses most of the tension in the second half. The section on Putin is short and effective. It the book's narrative threads and themes together. ‘Oligarchs’ never feels like a slog, which is a feat for a 400 page book -- even the insider-baseball minutiae of the oligarch’s privatization schemes, relying as they did on the obscurantism of complex financial structures, is pretty fascinating.
  
  It’s worth noting that the success of several of the oligarchs was contingent on murky high-level protection (Khodorkovsky being the prime example) – from security services? Yeltsin inner circle? Somewhere else? Who knows. This is an unavoidable blind spot in the book – Hoffman says so himself early on - so I don’t think it necessarily suffers from it.
  
  Minor nitpick: book treats rise of capitalism in Russia as foregone conclusion, phrasing it as if they’d been resisting natural law, sort of an ‘end of history’ type thing. Mentions lack of ‘mature business culture’ alongside lack of rule of law / finreg as contributing to wild-west style of Russian capitalism in 90s. Seems a pre-2008 idea. I don’t think ‘mature business culture’ exists in West either, or at least hasn’t since the rise of Friedman’s shareholder theory.
• 
  catinca.ciornei

  Riveting detailed story about the main Russian oligarchs, retold by a master journalist storyteller. Captivating in many ways - historically, economically, politically; larger than life figures in an unique historical moment, that of the fall of the Soviet Union. Also a great story about really unbridled capitalism, and power of 'fake' news. Interesting read especially given today's major political (USA) and social topics.
• 
  Alex Snyatkov

  Well researched and well written history of six Moscow oligarchs, how they came to exorbitant money, power and eventually fell. It was very interesting to learn about what was happening backstage when I watched events of crazy "Democracy and Capitalism Now!" play staged on the streets of Moscow. However, I think this book will look boring for anybody who wasn't present in Russia during 90s.
  
• 
  Anya

  A very informative book regarding Russia's richest businessmen in modern Russia. A lot to remember, but revealing of what makes the Russian economy including political webs, Soviet values, and big personalities. Impressive journalism.
• 
  Jak60

  The Oligarchs attracted my attention because the period it covered (essentially the decade which transitioned the old Soviet Union to the contemporary Russia) was something I was very interested in and of which I had only a rather superficial knowledge. So The Oligarchs presented itself as the perfect match...
  In many ways, it was so, and if in the end it failed it was for excess: excess of information and details, which make the book unnecessarily too long and heavy reading.
  In fact I was shocked when, after a few days of avid reading, I realised I was only one third into the book....I had learnt so much in that third that I asked myself what would come in the remainder of the book. Well, that's the problem, what comes after is mainly a mountain of information, details, anecdotes providing supporting evidence to points put forward earlier on and already sufficiently supported. So I confess I started skimming through the chapters, not jumping completely because you can still find some good complementary facts in that plethora of repetitions.
  In the end, the last couple of chapters, the books picks up again its pace when it describes the final transition from the crazy 90's of wild capitalism and oligarchs into Putin's Russia.
  All in all, I want to give the book credit for being so incredibly instructive (at least for me), and I will punish the lengthiness and wordiness of the central part only with one star less.
• 
  Marius Greblikas

  Stipri knyga, labai detaliai ir aiškiai aprašoma kokia buvo griūvančios sovietų sąjungos situacija, kaip buvę žmonės pasinaudojo esama situacija ir patapo vieni turtingiausių žmonių Pasaulyje. Kokie buvo naudojami metodai, čia jau visai kitas klausimas. Kai gyvenai tame laikotarpyje, kai atsimeni "perestrojkos" laidas televizijoje, kai pameni nemažai elementų, kuriuos matiai kiekvieną miela dieną, darosi bauginančiai graudu.
  
  Manau labai panašiais metodais buvo turtėjama ir Lietuvoje, tačiau kai mes neturime tokių išteklių, resursų, tai ir mūsiškiai oligarchai ne tokie galingi, kaip buvo/yra Rusijoje.
  
  Tačiau visi pinigai staiga pasidaro labai nuliniai, kai ateina į valdžią KGB pilietis ir pradeda diktatą...
  
  Labai smagiai susiskaitė ir tikrai viena geriausių knygų šia tema.
• 
  Patryk

  Very informative look at the economic transformation from communism to a rigged "free market" in 90s Russia under Boris Yeltsin, at least for me who has not read anything about that period. It was however inconsistent in depth at times, glossing over how certain developments took place while getting into the minutes of other ultimately standard meetings. Putin comes in at the end and, although his rise to power of course warrants its own book, he appears essentially as a deus ex machina. Additionally, though appropriately covering the backroom deals of certain then-prominent oligarchs, the book only mentions ordinary Russians' lives near the beginning and once more later, rather than effectively contrasting life "on the ground" with the exorbitance of the oligarchy.
• 
  Albertas Agejevas

  The book explains very clearly and vividly the problems of the Soviet economy in the 80's, what whas being done in the late 80's to address them, what consequences it had, and how, decision by decision, the current political-economical system of the Russian Federation was formed. Parts of it read like an engaging thriller. The sequence of events sometimes even feels too logical, I would not expect that much cohesion and so little randomness in the real life.
  
  I've lived through perestroika and the downfall of the Soviet Union, I've witnessed the events described in this book in the Russian media. This book put all that into an overarching story.
• 
  Dana Aldee

  After reading the DOJ’s Report on the investigation into Russian Interference with the 2016 Presidential Election, I was baffled with the amount of influence Russian Oligarchs had on American businessmen. I further questioned the direct connections these oligarchs had to the kremlin.
  
  So, naturally, I wanted to understand how the Russian system operated, when business-savvy oligarchs got their start, and how Putin was in charge of calling all the shots. This book gave me the kind of information I needed to better understand the early years of Wealth accumulation in post-soviet Russia.
  
  ——————-
  
• 
  Aliaksei Mukhachou

  Loved it. As a post-soviet child myself, I really value the semi-outsider view you get from americans, like Hoffman, describing in neutral, matter-of-fact fashion the events that shaped my life, even if I was just a child back then. It's a very similar experience to Kotkin's Stalin series. Hoffman's writing may not be to the same aesthetic quality as Kotkin's, admittedly. Yet, it's about very recent events and brings together many first-hand accounts from their participants. And it's devoid of the emotional vitriol and bias you find in any book written by Russians, thankfully. It's 'clean' yet captivating. A good guide to how many fortunes are built.. In Russia or anywhere really..
• 
  Nic Rad

  A whirlwind of a book that goes through the decade following the collapse of the Soviet Union (and touches on the beginning of Putin’s rise) - well researched and written to understand the mentality and foundation of the pseudo-democratic and pseudo-capitalist system that exists today.
  
  It is odd to read this, understanding that nearly all the main characters/figures of the book are now either exiled or dead.
• 
  NCHS Library

  From the Publisher
  In this saga of brilliant triumphs and magnificent failures, David E. Hoffman, the former Moscow bureau chief for the Washington Post, sheds light on the hidden lives of Russia's most feared power brokers: the oligarchs. Focusing on six of these ruthless men-- Alexander Smolensky, Yuri Luzhkov, Anatoly Chubais, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Boris Berezovsky, and Vladimir Gusinsky--Hoffman shows how a rapacious, unruly capitalism was born out of the ashes of Soviet communism.
• 
  John Martin Ladrido

  After 2 years I'm done! The Oligarchs gives you the knowledge how to exploit a weak and corrupt government or state.
  
  If you are cheeky, daring, and resolute you will get everything. If you are not very cheeky and not very daring, just sit quietly.
• 
  Svyatoslav Klichuk

  Хороша книга для тих, кому цікаво як відбувалося становлення олігархів в Росії, та й Україні. Перші кооперативи, банки, потім приватизація, схеми, підконтрольні медіа та політики. І чим це врешті закінчилося для деяких з "володарів світу"
• 
  Lexi

  Dense, thorough and very well written. A lot about the changing systems during after perestroika and the Yeltsin era which could have been dry, but the author kept it interesting.
• 
  Robert

  Highly informative on the rise of Russian oligarchs during 1990s and early 2000s.