GODFATHER OF THE KREMLIN: Boris Berezovsky and the Looting of Russia.

• Author: Cockburn, Andrew
• Position: Review

GODFATHER OF THE KREMLIN: Boris Berezovsky and the Looting of Russia by Paul Klebnikov & Drenka Willen Harcourt Brace, $28.00

ONE OF THE MORE ENTERTAINING sporting events of this spring was the great "Worst Western Journalist in Moscow" contest sponsored by exile, the outstanding expatriate-edited Moscow journal. Through succeeding elimination rounds, masters of the cliche, manglers of syntax, virtuosos of plagiarism, and, above all, those who persist in misreporting Russia as a land advancing into the sun-kissed territory of "reform," were awarded by the judges for their superior awfulness with advancement to the final bouts. While the final was a somewhat lackluster and predictable walkover for David Hoffman of The Washington Post, the event provided an illuminating survey about why we know so little about what is going on in Russia.

Paul Klebnikov, who (perhaps wisely) does not live in Moscow, did not qualify for the competition, but he would hardly have gotten past the first round. For years, he has been delivering unvarnished reports to the readers of Forbes magazine on the reality of life in Russia today. They do not make a pretty picture. Now, with Godfather of the Kremlin: Boris Berezovsky and the Looting Klebnikov has given us an indispensable as well as riveting account of the rise of this cunning, rapacious, and ruthless figure, the most successful (so far) of all the predatory creatures who prowl in the jungle of Russian capitalism.

Berezovsky is an intriguing the Soviet system crumbled he was halfway through a distinguished career as an academic mathematician. Yet when the new world dawned he sprang into action. The foundation of his fortune lay in an arrangement he forged with the management of Avtovaz, the huge and ramshackle Russian car maker. In exchange for cutting senior management into the action, he was able to get cars straight off the assembly line for far less than the cost of production, which he then sold at immense profit through his newly founded chain of auto dealerships. The factory workers paid the difference by going without pay for months on end.

The early '90s, when Berezovsky was getting under way, was the time of the great gang wars in Moscow, as rival criminal coalitions shot it out for control of key industries and businesses. Businessmen could only ward off extortion or worse by paying one or other criminal group for a "roof"--protection. On one side in the most important war stood the Chechens, much...