The Oligarchs

This is an updated edition of 'the most dramatic and comprehensive account' of the early years of Russian capitalism, by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "The Dead Hand". "The New York Times". David Hoffman, former Moscow bureau chief for the Washington Post, exposes the hidden lives of Russia's most feared power brokers: the oligarchs. Focusing on six of these cunning and ruthless men - Alexander Smolensky, Yuri Luzhkov, Anatoly Chubais, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Boris Berezovsky, and Vladimir Gusinsky - Hoffman reveals how the oligarchs exploited the weakened Soviet state and rose to the pinnacle of Russia's new capitalism. The Oligarchs started small. Before Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika reforms, they were stuck in the dead-end Soviet system of shortages and bread lines. But as Communism disintegrated, they found gaps in the economy and reaped their first fortunes by getting their hands on fast money. The state auctioned off its own assets, and they reached higher, grabbing the biggest oil companies, mines, and factories. They went on wild borrowing sprees, taking billions of dollars from gullible western lenders. When the ruble collapsed, the tycoons saved themselves by hiding their assets and running for cover. This is a saga of brilliant triumphs and magnificent failures, the untold story of how a rapacious, unruly capitalism was born out of the ashes of Soviet communism.