The Short Happy Life of a Russian Anti-Corruption Investigator
Nazim Kaziakhmedov was probably still reveling in his promotion. He’d only arrived in Moscow from his work as a head prosecutor in Makhachkal, the capital of Dagestan, in May to join General Prosecutor Nikolai Batmanov’s team of senior investigators for “especially important cases.” That was only the first step in Kaziakhmedov’s rise through Russia’s legal bureaucracy. A few weeks ago he was tapped to join the Kremlin’s newly created “Investigative Committee,” which under the chairmanship of Aleksandr Bastrykin was to make Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov’s very public anti-corruption campaign a reality.
But Kaziakhmedov’s career as an anti-corruption investigator was abruptly cut short Thursday night. As he was leaving the Caucasian restaurant “Bakinskii Dvorik,” a man 30-35 years old, 5’9″, dressed in all black with a black baseball cap, unloaded three rounds into Kaziakhmedov’s body. One in his stomach and one in the chest. One “control shot,” as they say in Russian, to the head. The weapon was left at the victim’s side. The killer was nowhere to be found. One need not be a fan of the Sopranos to recognize that this was a contract killing.
Kaziakhmedov’s assassination is sure to revive images of the “gangster capitalism” of the 1990s. It was then that Russia’s budding capitalists opted for civil war rather than civil law to protect their fruits of primitive accumulation. Unfortunately, as this new hit proves, the practice has not died out under the “stability” of Putin’s Russia. Nor should Kaziakhmedov’s murder be seen as the first blow against the Kremlin’s efforts to manage elite theft. Around this time last year, Central Bank of Russia First Deputy Chairman Andrei Kozlov received a “control” shot to the head as he left Moscow’s Spartak Sports Center. Kozlov was another anti-corruption maverick who dared to clean up Russia’s horribly corrupt banking system.
Kaziakhmedov can be considered the first casualty in the Investigative Committee’s efforts to look into the dealings of the Finvest Group, a conglomerate of ten Russian firms which organizes hedge funds for construction projects, retail, and transportation services. The ten firms control 48 percent of Finvest’s holdings. The other 52 percent is held privately, among which includes Federal Council member Vladimir Slutsker and ex-leader of the Russian financial broker “Rostek” Ambartsum Safarian.
Finvest’s activities came to Russian authorities’ attention in 2005 when Slutsker sent an appeal to the government charging that his partners were stealing. An inquiry resulted in Safarain’s arrest and conviction for fraud. Safarian’s conviction was only the first act in the Finvest drama. In April 2005, Anatoly Trofimov, another private Finvest investor and former FSB chief, and his girlfriend Tatiana Kopyttseva were shot dead near their Moscow apartment.
It’s still unclear what the motive was for the hit against Kaziakhmedov, except that he was the most active agent in the investigation against Finvest. If this is the extent of his involvement, then it is clear that Kaziakhmedov’s murder is a reminder of the extent to which Russian entrepreneurs will go to in order to protect their right to plunder.
And while one may consign the incident to the dark side of Russian capitalism, given the fact that the Putin’s government, now spearheaded by Zubkov, has been more vigorously beating the drums of anti-corruption, one can’t help speculate about the murder’s larger implications.
First, it is a reminder that the Russian political and economic elite are riddled with clans willing to employ violence even against Putin’s own clients. Many have noted that as the Presidential elections approach, these often nebulous clans will make their voice more pronounced. Second, if Putin’s government is really sincere about cracking down on corruption, then the state will have to use some hefty powers of its own against its own base of support. Putin is no stranger to wielding state power, as the Khodorkovsky case shows. The difference is that this war against the elite is taking place at the same time the Kremlin is orchestrating a transfer of power. Multitasking at this point in time might produce more political problems than necessary. Lastly, Kaziakhmedov’s murder is a reminder that the real enemies of “Plan Putin” (i.e. Putin’s attempts to bring political and economic stability through managing elite forces) are not outspoken journalists, NGOs, exiled oligarchs, colored revolutionaries, or even flamboyant oppositionists. Putin’s real enemies might prove to be internal to the very class upon which his power rests: the Russian capitalist elite.
Sean Guillory is a PhD candidate in Russian and European History at UCLA. You can read his thoughts on Russia at Sean’s Russia Blog.
Did the wild west ever leave?
Capitalism is not the problem here, as the article suggests. Rather it is the mafia murder for profit that is the problem. Murder isn’t part of the free market system. It is anti-capitalist for business competition to be affected through brute force, and that is the one responsibilty of the Russian governemnt in the economy.
Someone to translate one of the best portuguese writers, ever known, CRISTÓVÃO DE AGUIAR.
Don’t forget this name you will be hearing about him very soon.
Thanks for your attention
HAving visited Russia three times – twice on cultural exchanges during the Soviet years – and once during the capitalist period, I saw little difference. It’s not an issue of capitalism vs.communism. It’s an issue of the corruption endemic to Russia under ALL systems. The tsar’s Okhrana, Lenin’s Cheka (and thenKGB) and Russian Mafia are all basically the same people with same intent. The communists, as we know from the Gulag, were just more efficient at killing people.
Isn’t 48% and 62% something like 110 percent?
ROGER:
I couldn’t agree with you more. Russia has never had an actual market economy for one second of its entire history, and to suggest otherwise is simply fantasy; nor has Russia ever really tried democracy. So, we have know idea what effect those systems would have in Russia, contrary to the propaganda that is put out by today’s Kremlin. What we’re seeing the dark side of in Russia today is dictatorship and criminality, not capitalism or democracy.
Unfortunately, Mr. Guillory is an avowed Marxist/Communist/Athiest, so his worldview is colored by this ideology and he cannot help seeing capitalism as the root of all evil and saying so.
I am glad I was not the only one to notice Sean’s several attempts to link capitalism to Russian systemic problems that result in rampant lawlessness and corruption. And it is only natural that such a juxtaposition eventually lead to Roger’s conclusion that there must be something uniquely Russian – be it in genes or culture that make us Russians preserve our violent and uncivilized ways.
Russia is hardly a model of capitalism. Sean knows it very well and we have discussed this on his blog on occasions agreeing that it is very difficult to tell where the state ends and the society begins in Russia. Is Gazprom a private or a state company? Rosneft? What about the myriad of quasi private entities under the Ministry of Transportation? Can anyone imagine a modern capitalist country where a Minister of Communications (Putin’s friend Leonid Reiman)owns 2 billion dollars worth of …. telecommunication assets?
There are several confusions at play here. The most basic concept of capitalism is that of economic and social formation based on private ownership of means of production. And since there isn’t an absolute fully private capitalism, the distinction is in proportional sizes of private vs public sectors. Earlier in history private ownership barely existed under dominance of Feudal state control of means of production. At some point Lenin very appropriately referred to his contemporary capitalism as “State Monopolistic Capitalism.” He thought it was the final stage of capitalism. Needless to say he was wrong, it was a final stage, but of feudalism.
Blaming faults and excesses of late feudalism on capitalism has been one of the favorite tactics from the left since 1848.
This confusion is also muddied by artificial distinction between communism of the USSR and feudalism. Both have state control and ownership of means of production. Both have elite classes that ran things. Both are based on confiscating labor and forcing peasants to stay on the land. Differences between USSR and feudalism are cosmetic and similarities are systemic. The USSR was Ottoman Empire with nukes, nothing more.
The reason, Roger, for ills of contemporary Russia is that it has not changed enough yet. It is still very much feudal. Capitalism will eventually prevail and will create a civil society there.
Kim, Sean is no communist and he is hardly a Marxist either.