For the past few weeks academic email lists devoted to Russian studies have been receiving a petition from a group of Sociology students from Moscow State University. A MGU student group named OD-Group, which is distributing the petition, claims that

In recent years, lectures at the department have become ever more insipid and formal exercises. The administration has cut the number of seminars and practical classes. We are allowed to take ever fewer course units in neighboring disciplines. We are hardly ever given the opportunity to attend talks by outside lecturers. Exam questions are limited to the contents of a textbook authored by the dean. The dean’s office has distributed a brochure to all students which approvingly quotes the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” blames Freemasons and Zionists for the world wars, and claims that they control US and British policy and the global financial system.

Studying conditions at the department are unbearable. There are not enough lecture halls, and there is no ventilation. The building is stuffed with video surveillance cameras which the administration uses to track suspect students. Factory-style turnstiles have been installed at the entrance, and the security guards act rudely toward students. We have no library of our own.

We demand that the curricula be changed, competent teachers be invited, students be informed about foreign exchange programs, the rude security guards be dismissed, the rigid gating system be abolished, and a minimum of basic amenities be provided.

Their organizing efforts seemed to have paid off. Today a few English language media picked up on the story. The New York Times claims that Moscow State University has opened an investigative commission to look into the claims, though Vladimir I. Dobrenkov, the dean of the Sociology Department told the Times in a telephone interview, that the claims “are full of hints, rumors and half-truths” and that no anti-Semitism has been taught or tolerated on campus.” One then wonder what exactly will be investigated? Will it be OD-Group’s accusations or OD-Group themselves?

I assume that in the end it will be the latter because since the creation of the commission, as the Chronicle of Higher Education reports, six students were detained by the police for distributing fliers. They were later released without charges. This was the second arrest in as many months. On February 28 police arrested some students for similar activities.

A few weeks ago Forbes released its World’s Billionaire List. Most commentators have noted the increase in Chinese, Indian, and Russian presence on the list. This is not surprising. The three countries are some of the most economically robust countries in the world. China serves as the global center of cheap labor. India an increasing center of high tech and service. Russia the world’s oil and gas supplier. Taken together the three nations provide the pillars of a global economy—labor, communications, and fuel.

It is no wonder then that the global ruling class is reflecting these nations. Russia has 53 billionaires (two shy of Germany), of which 19 are new to the list. China has 20 (41 if you include Hong Kong), 13 of which are new. India has 36 with 14 newcomers. Billionaires are growing faster in Russia, China, and India than anywhere else in the world.

What does this mean for the global ruling class? As James Petras notes in his article “Meet the Global Ruling Class,” this surge in billionaires has come with increasing polarization of the world’s wealth. “The total wealth of this global ruling class,” he writes, “grew 35 per cent year to year topping $3.5 trillion, while income levels for the lower 55 per cent of the world’s 6-billion-strong population declined or stagnated. Put another way, one hundred millionth of the world’s population (1/100,000,000) owns more than over 3 billion people.” I’ll repeat that in case you didn’t get it: One hundred millionth of the world’s population own more than 3 billion people. So much for the rising tide lifting all boats.

Petras also makes some important observations about Russia’s billionaires. They are young. Most “accumulated” their wealth in their mid-20s. Few are members of the old Communist leaders. Despite Western media assertions about Putin moving against Russia’s oligarchs, “biographical evidence demonstrates that there is no rupture between the rise of the billionaires under Yeltsin and their consolidation and expansion under Putin.” And lastly, in response to Forbes‘ laughable assertions that these Russian billionaires were “self made,” Petras writes, “Of the top eight Russian billionaire oligarchs, all got their start from strong-arming their rivals, setting up ‘paper banks’ and taking over aluminum, oil, gas, nickel and steel production and the export of bauxite, iron and other minerals. Every sector of the former Communist economy was pillaged by the new billionaires: Construction, telecommunications, chemicals, real estate, agriculture, vodka, foods, land, media, automobiles, airlines etc..” Self-made indeed.

But perhaps most interesting is how Russia and Latin America compare in this regard. Latin American and Russian elites got their wealth not like Bill Gates, but essentially by seizing state industries privatized in neo-liberal privatization schemes:

In both Latin America and Russia, the billionaires grabbed lucrative state assets under the aegis of orthodox neo-liberal regimes (Salinas-Zedillo regimes in Mexico, Collor-Cardoso in Brazil, Yeltsin in Russia) and consolidated and expanded under the rule of supposedly ‘reformist’ regimes (Putin in Russia, Lula in Brazil and Fox in Mexico). In the rest of Latin America (Chile, Colombia and Argentina) the making of the billionaires resulted from the bloody military coups and regimes, which destroyed the socio-political movements and started the privatization process. This process was then even more energetically promoted by the subsequent electoral regimes of the right and ‘center-left’.

What is repeatedly demonstrated in both Russia and Latin America is that the key factor leading to the quantum leap in wealth ­ from millionaires to billionaires ­ was the vast privatization and subsequent de-nationalization of lucrative public enterprises.

It is no wonder Pierre-Joseph Proudhon said that “property is theft.”

The character of the Russian elite is a topic of constant speculation. Is it one man rule? Is it an oligarchy? Is it a mafia structure? What is the real relationship between Putin’s administration and the security organs? Between the state and the emerging Russian middle class? What will happen in 2008?

Olga Kryshtanovskaya, head of the Elite Studies Center at the Sociology Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, and author of Anatomiia rossiiskoi elita (2004) says that the Russian elite has been split between Westernizers and Slavophiles for the last 200 years. “In fact, these have been the only two “parties” in Russia ever since,” she says in an interview with Kommersant Vlast’. “No others have emerged, no matter how many parties Russia has seen over the decades. The Westernizers argue for freedom of the individual, private enterprise, separation of powers, elections. For Slavophiles, all this means alien ideologies and chaos that casts doubt on the very existence of the Russian state.” Putin’s regime is simply the most recent personification of the Slavophile faction in power.

Kryshtanovskaya makes several other interesting insights in the interview. I encourage everyone to read it. Here are few highlights:

Question: If the strength of the Russian state lies in rejecting democracy, then why do the people who are currently at the helm keep saying that Russia needs democracy? They could just change the Constitution, after all.

Olga Kryshtanovskaya: But why act so crudely? It was the liberals who publicly betrayed the autocratic machine and openly attacked its load-bearing components: the pyramid of power, the command economy, secrecy. But today’s authorities have an entirely different background. In the secret services, they were trained in undercover operations - working behind a mask, concealing their true intentions. No need to wreck the system openly; instead, you need to infiltrate it and go on to preserve its facade while altering the contents to suit yourself, step by step. But these steps toward changing the system should always be done from different directions, and always unexpectedly for those within the system and outside observers alike. So that no one will be able to trace a logical connection between various steps or figure out the purpose of the whole operation.

Rumor has it that soon after Vladimir Putin came to power, he made a revealing remark: “Wherever you look, it’s all like Chechnya.” What he meant was disorder. But what is “disorder” to someone from a military or state security background? It’s the absence of control. If there’s no control, there are opportunities for independent influence. And the presence of alternative centers of power is perceived by the siloviki as a threat to Russia’s integrity. Does the Duma refuse to take orders from the presidential administration? That’s disorder. Is Gazprom run by Rem Vyakhirev rather than the Kremlin? Disorder. Are some parties making demands, are the media talking about something or other? It’s all disorder - it needs to be eliminated. And they have eliminated it. Over the past seven years, the chekists have changed Russia’s political system entirely - without changing a single letter of the Constitution.

Question: But most citizens are content with present-day conditions - judging by President Putin’s popularity.

Olga Kryshtanovskaya: For the people, democracy still remains something foreign, incomprehensible, and suspicious. But the present regime’s autocratic style is familiar - they understand where President Putin is leading Russia. We still retain our traditional faith in a Good Tsar. Besides, the position of the chekists is incredibly stable these days. That’s mostly because the present system relies on age-old traditions of autocratic statehood. The siloviki aren’t being resisted by any other force. Not even Yuri Andropov enjoyed such freedom of action: he always had to consult the Politburo, where he had only one vote. But now the chekists are their own “Politburo.” Essentially, all the major decisions in Russia are made by five people: Vladimir Putin, Viktor Ivanov, Sergei Ivanov, Igor Sechin, and Nikolai Patrushev.

Question: But Vladimir Putin will drop out of that quintet in 2008.

Olga Kryshtanovskaya: Even if he steps down as president, he won’t leave the “Politburo.” The corporation known as the Federal Security Service (FSB) and its ruling group will remain unchanged. It’s only Boris Berezovsky who claims that he “made” Putin. Putin was made president by the corporation that came to power in 2000. And it didn’t go to all that effort just to surrender power after a mere eight years.

Question: A great deal will depend on the successor, right?

Olga Kryshtanovskaya: The chekist “Politburo” will remain in power anyway. If they prefer a “strong” president, they will choose Sergei Ivanov. If they prefer a “weak” president, it will be Dmitri Medvedev. Or Vladimir Putin might remain the leading figure after all.

Quotations from the interview were translated by Elena Leonova.