It's fascinating that so many of them are ex-KGB. These guys would have been painstakingly vetted for their impeccable ideological purity before being recruited in the first place, let alone promoted. These were the ultimate guardians of the Communist system, and they turned hyper-capitalist overnight. I guess it's like we see in the West when holier-than-thou politicians are enmeshed in a corruption scandal but like everything Russian, executed on a grand scale. Have you seen the size of their novels?!
The prominent communists in the Soviet party had largely been murdered after the Moscow processes, left the country, or been exiled to Siberia, by the mid '30's. To the extent there were any communists left in the party by then, it was people who were too afraid or too weak to stand up to the regime.
To the extent the KGB were selected for ideological purity, they were initially selected for adherence to the ideals of a Stalinist party machine that was mostly concerned with the protection of privilege.
It's totally unsurprising that they "turned hypercapitalist overnight" - you had a group that was built on accepting that using pretty much any means necessary to maintain power and privilege was perfectly ok.
"... vetted for their impeccable ideological purity ..."
Rather, vetted for their impeccable ability to wax lyrical about "ideological purity." I'd suggest that these guys are personalities that learn how to survive in the current climate regardless what that climate happens to be.
Enriching yourself on stolen goods - even when you've enlisted state power to legalise the stealing - isn't very accurately described as capitalism, hyper or otherwise.
Being super-rich in Russia is all about receiving privileges from the regime in exchange for loyalty. Ceasing your loyalty has consequences:
There was a lot of tension between the KGB and the senior party officials in the USSR. In fact, in an interview I watched recently a KGB defector described them as "hating" each other. It's not necessarily true that all KGB operatives would have been die-hard communists, particularly members of Putin's generation - i.e. those that were born and grew up in the USSR rather than actively participating in revolution.
I think they were less vetted for their impeccable ideological purity than filtered out on basis of their ambition and utter pragmatism ("If that is what it takes to become part of the establishment, so be it")
> painstakingly vetted for their impeccable ideological purity
You watch too many Hollywood spy movies :)
> turned hyper-capitalist overnight
What happened in the 90s had little to do with capitalism, though some may argue it did :) It was mass theft of state property (with a fair amount of murder) out in the open among chaos and disarray.
First, there was the gang of "liberals", who heroically put an end to the Soviets and stole what they could on the ruins of the collapsed Empire. Then in 00s with Putin came the KGB gang, who took away the loot from the "liberals" and put private sector under control. They recently ousted the opposing military gang in a big embezzlement scandal. They're the ruling elite at the moment.
He talks how KGB agents after the fall of the Soviet Union were in the best position to get into high power positions, plunder and pillage the best stuff available. They went from supposed devout communists to the most ruthless capitalists.
They (KGB agents) were really a different class of people. They had knowledge and understand of all the details, they were also selected to be the smartest, then trained on top of it.
This is not entirely true. The majority of oligarchs are either related to ex-top soviet officials or some black market thugs who got freedom in post-collapse chaos.
My grandfather was a KGB colonel, in 90s he lost all his savings because of crazy inflation. I cant recall any of his friends i knew who became rich, most of them retired or had to leave and are getting miserable government pension and a letter of appreciation for good service once a year.
As I said the oligarchs are ex gov officials sons or cousins and thugs who spent time in soviet jail for black market trade. Hey, even ukrainian president did a few years in jail for stealing some merchandise, what would you expect.
> The majority of oligarchs are either related to ex-top soviet officials or some black market thugs who got freedom in post-collapse chaos.
Well ex-top soviet officials are sort of in the same category. It certainly wasn't regular citizens like factory workers.
I guess what I was trying to say KGB agents and ex-officials joining it was surprising since they were supposedly the biggest and more devout believers in the system.
If you read that book you'll that Cherkashin also sort of feels a bit nostalgic for those times and decries what has become of the country he served for so many years.
They weren't selected from the smartest, that's a myth. Sure they didn't recruit imbeciles, but any average man with determination and a penchant for servitude could become a KGB officer.
I guess you are right. It seems they were selected based on family ties. I.e. those whose fathers were in the party or worked in the secret police or high ranking army officials.
At some point Cherkashin kind of mentions how he was fairly average and he was sent to the foreign language training academy and how it was at first very hard for him to pick up languages. But they just had very good teachers and eventually he mastered them.
So I guess I should correct it and say they picked what where thought to be "loyal" and "patriotic" people and then they trained them well. So if some got smarter it was often as a result of having to work with the best teachers.
>It's fascinating that so many of them are ex-KGB.
It's not that surprising, really. Positions in the KGB were highly prized, and the organization only took people with high intelligence and demonstrated competence. They really were the best and the brightest the USSR had to offer.
