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only one source suggested it, Alekperov is not generally concidered part of the group as he was in Russian government since early 1990s
if you insist to bring "Jewish question" and an irrelevant primary source, let' at least properly summarize what these sources actually tell
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#[[Alexander Smolensky]] – [[Bank Stolichny]]
#[[Alexander Smolensky]] – [[Bank Stolichny]]


Other sources, including collective photo and video materials, suggested that [[Vladimir Vinogradov]] (Inkombank) and [[Vitaly Malkin]] ([[Rossiysky Kredit]]) were also part of the closed group.<ref>[[Tom Bower]] (2010). ''[https://books.google.ru/books?id=QX81AQAAQBAJ&pg=PT94 Oil: Money, Politics and Power in the 21st Century]''. — New York: [[Grand Central Publishing]], p. 94-97 {{ISBN|978-0-446-56354-3}}</ref><ref>Dmitry Butrin. ''[http://kommersant.ru/doc/312965 The Results of 10 Years of Capitalism]''. [[Kommersant]] newspaper, March 5, 2002 (in Russian)</ref><ref name='punch'>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntGbeO41C5I Seven Bankers. Power Punch] at the [[TV Tsentr]] official YouTube channel, October 6, 2015 (in Russian)</ref> From then on, various sources featured different combinations of those nine names to describe the phenomenon of Semibankirschina.
Other sources, including collective photo and video materials, suggested that [[Vagit Alekperov]], [[Vladimir Vinogradov]] (Inkombank) and [[Vitaly Malkin]] ([[Rossiysky Kredit]]) were also part of the closed group.<ref>[[Tom Bower]] (2010). ''[https://books.google.ru/books?id=QX81AQAAQBAJ&pg=PT94 Oil: Money, Politics and Power in the 21st Century]''. — New York: [[Grand Central Publishing]], p. 94-97 {{ISBN|978-0-446-56354-3}}</ref><ref>Dmitry Butrin. ''[http://kommersant.ru/doc/312965 The Results of 10 Years of Capitalism]''. [[Kommersant]] newspaper, March 5, 2002 (in Russian)</ref><ref name='punch'>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntGbeO41C5I Seven Bankers. Power Punch] at the [[TV Tsentr]] official YouTube channel, October 6, 2015 (in Russian)</ref> From then on, various sources featured different combinations of those nine names to describe the phenomenon of Semibankirschina.


Since most of the bankers had [[Jew]]ish roots, it led to a rise of [[antisemitism]] in Russia.<ref>Luke Harding. ''[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/jul/02/russia.lukeharding1 The richer they come ...]'' at [[The Guardian]], July 2, 2007</ref> In 1998 a popular post-Soviet writer [[Edward Topol]] (a Jew himself) published an open letter in the [[Argumenty i Fakty]] newspaper addressed to Boris Berezovsky and the rest of oligarchs in power whom he described as "a puppeteer with a long Jewish surname". He wrote about his meeting with Berezovsky that had happened two months before the [[1998 Russian financial crisis]]. Berezovsky supposedly confirmed that the financial power in Russia at the time was controlled by Jews. Topol's main concern was that the crisis could've led to a wave of antisemitism and [[pogrom]]s unless the oligarchs fixed the situation.<ref>''[http://www.aif.ru/archive/1636531 Edward Topol: Love Your Russia, Boris Abramovich!]'' // [[Argumenty i Fakty]], September 9, 1998 (in Russian)</ref>
Most of the bankers were ethnic Jews which, according to [[Luke Harding]], resulted from "the way the Soviet Union restricted Jews' ability to assimilate and rise up in society. While ethnic Slavs dominated all the best career slots in the highly bureaucratised official society, Jews who wanted to get ahead were forced into the black market economy. When communism collapsed and the black market was legalised as free market capitalism, the Jewish entrepreneurs had a head start.<ref>Luke Harding. ''[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/jul/02/russia.lukeharding1 The richer they come ...]'' at [[The Guardian]], July 2, 2007</ref>. In 1998 a post-Soviet writer [[Edward Topol]] published an open letter to Boris Berezovsky asking that [[Russian oligarchs]] must share a part of their wealth with people.<ref>''[http://www.aif.ru/archive/1636531 Edward Topol: Love Your Russia, Boris Abramovich!]'' // [[Argumenty i Fakty]], September 9, 1998 (in Russian)</ref>


==History==
==History==

Revision as of 15:22, 17 January 2018

Semibankirschina
Russianсемибанкирщина
RomanizationSemibankirschina
Literal meaningseven bankers

Semibankirschina (семибанкирщина), or seven bankers (see semiboyarschina for the origin of the term) was a group of seven Russian Business oligarchs who played an important role in the political and economical life of Russia between 1996 and 2000. In spite of internal conflicts, the group worked together in order to reelect President Boris Yeltsin in 1996 and later — to successfully manipulate him and his political environment from behind the curtain.

The seven bankers

The word Semibankirschina was coined by the Russian journalist Andrey Fadin of the Obschaya Gazeta newspaper who published an article "Semibankirschina as a New Russian Variation of Semiboyarschina" on November 14, 1996.[1] He wrote that "they control the access to budget money and basically all investment opportunities inside the country. They own the gigantic information resource of the major TV channels. They form the President's opinion. Those who didn't want to walk along them were either strangled or left the circle." Slightly over a year later, Fadin was killed in a car accident.[2] Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn also used this word in his critical 1998 essay Russia under Avalanche to describe the current political regime and to warn people of what he considered an organized crime syndicate that controlled the President and 70% of all Russian money.[3]

The identities of seven bankers are usually linked to the interview given by Boris Berezovsky to Financial Times where he names seven people who together controlled about 50% of all Russian economics and influenced the most important internal political decisions of Russia.[4][5][6] Those include:

  1. Boris Berezovsky – Sibneft
  2. Mikhail Khodorkovsky – Bank Menatep, Yukos
  3. Mikhail Fridman – Alfa Group
  4. Pyotr Aven – Alfa Group
  5. Vladimir Gusinsky – Media-Most holding
  6. Vladimir Potanin – UNEXIM Bank
  7. Alexander Smolensky – Bank Stolichny

Other sources, including collective photo and video materials, suggested that Vagit Alekperov, Vladimir Vinogradov (Inkombank) and Vitaly Malkin (Rossiysky Kredit) were also part of the closed group.[7][8][9] From then on, various sources featured different combinations of those nine names to describe the phenomenon of Semibankirschina.

Most of the bankers were ethnic Jews which, according to Luke Harding, resulted from "the way the Soviet Union restricted Jews' ability to assimilate and rise up in society. While ethnic Slavs dominated all the best career slots in the highly bureaucratised official society, Jews who wanted to get ahead were forced into the black market economy. When communism collapsed and the black market was legalised as free market capitalism, the Jewish entrepreneurs had a head start.[10]. In 1998 a post-Soviet writer Edward Topol published an open letter to Boris Berezovsky asking that Russian oligarchs must share a part of their wealth with people.[11]

History

It is generally considered that the union was triggered on March, 1996 when a political consultant Sergey Kurginyan invited a group of thirteen Russian oligarchs to sign the so-called Letter of Thirteen (alternatively named Come Out of the Dead End!) in an attempt to cancel the Presidential election of 1996.[12][13] The manifest was published in Nezavisimaya Gazeta and suggested that two major candidates — Boris Yeltsin and the Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov — should strike a "political compromise" in order to prevent "the economical collapse." It contained eight tips that described the position of business elites. The letter was called "a provocation" by the Communists and thus ignored.

After the plan failed, half of those oligarchs formed what became known as Semibankirschina — a group of seven business moguls ironically named after the 17th century seven boyars who owned the majority of Russian media resources and who decided to promote Boris Yeltsin every way possible. Since Yeltsin was highly unpopular by that time, with only 3—8% support, a complex technology of crowd manipulation was developed by the Gleb Pavlovsky's and Marat Gelman's think tank Foundation for Effective Politics,[14] with the involvement of American specialists (the latter fact was used as a basis for the comedy film Spinning Boris released in 2003).

Known as an extremely "dirty" election campaign both inside and outside of Russia,[15] it was discussed in detail in Gleb Pavlovsky's report President in 1996: Scenarios and Technologies of the Victory published shortly after. As Nezavisimaya Gazeta summarized it, "the formula of victory: attracting the expert resources + dominating in the information field + blocking the competitor's moves + dominating in mass media + dominating in elites."[14] The main analyst of the NTV TV channel Vsevolod Vilchek also admitted that they actively applied technologies of mass manipulation.[16] Both Dmitry Medvedev and Mikhail Gorbachev confirmed that Yeltsin's victory was hoaxed.[17][18]

Following the election, the seven bankers became members of the Russian government and turned into the main power behind Russian politics and economy.[6] Between 1996 and 2000 they gained control over the most valuable state enterprises in the natural resource and metal sectors and unofficially manipulated Yeltsin and his decisions.[19][13] According to Boris Berezovsky, they acted through Anatoly Chubais — an architect of privatization in Russia and Yeltsin's right-hand man who granted access to him at any time.[4]

All this resulted in further impoverishment of the population, criminalization of businesses and the infamous 1998 Russian financial crisis.[9] This was also the time when the word oligarch grew in popularity, substituting the nouveau riche term (both with extremely negative subtext). The 1999 saw the sudden rise to power of the unknown FSB officer Vladimir Putin. Boris Berezovsky and his associates claimed that it was him who single-handedly promoted Putin and insisted on his candidature as a Prime-minister and a President.[20][21]

Yet the following years saw a quick demise of most of the bankers and the rise of the new generation of "manageable" Russian oligarchy. Khodorkovsky, Berezovsky and Gusinsky turned into personae non gratae in Russia. Khodorkovsky lost his business as well as freedom in 2003, while Berezovsky and Gusinsky left Russia in 2000. Smolensky still owns significant companies, but lost his political influence. Vinogradov died in 2008. On 23 March 2013, Berezovsky was found dead at his home, Titness Park, at Sunninghill, near Ascot in Berkshire.[22]

References

  1. ^ Semibankirschina as a New Russian Variation of Semiboyarschina fragment in the Kommersant newspaper, June 23, 2003 (in Russian)
  2. ^ Sergei Mitrofanov. Journalist Andrei Fadin died. Kommersant newspaper, November 22, 1997 (in Russian)
  3. ^ Russia under Avalanche, page 57 at the Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's official website (in Russian)
  4. ^ a b British Paper Names Banking Clique at The Moscow Times, November 5, 1996
  5. ^ Daniel Treisman (2012). The Return: Russia's Journey from Gorbachev to Medvedev. New York: Free Press ISBN 978-1-4165-6071-5
  6. ^ a b Vesna Bojicic-Dzelilovic (2016). Persistent State Weakness in the Global Age. New York: Routledge ISBN 978-0-7546-7612-6
  7. ^ Tom Bower (2010). Oil: Money, Politics and Power in the 21st Century. — New York: Grand Central Publishing, p. 94-97 ISBN 978-0-446-56354-3
  8. ^ Dmitry Butrin. The Results of 10 Years of Capitalism. Kommersant newspaper, March 5, 2002 (in Russian)
  9. ^ a b Seven Bankers. Power Punch at the TV Tsentr official YouTube channel, October 6, 2015 (in Russian)
  10. ^ Luke Harding. The richer they come ... at The Guardian, July 2, 2007
  11. ^ Edward Topol: Love Your Russia, Boris Abramovich! // Argumenty i Fakty, September 9, 1998 (in Russian)
  12. ^ Vladimir Shlapentokh, Anna Arutunyan (2013). Freedom, Repression, and Private Property in Russia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press ISBN 9781107042148
  13. ^ a b Dmitri Butrin. The Undersigned in the Kommersant newspaper, April 24, 2006 (in Russian)
  14. ^ a b Sergei Kartofanov. An Approach to the President's Victory by Nezavisimaya Gazeta № 60, August 29, 1996 at the Foundation for Effective Politics website (in Russian)
  15. ^ Dimitri K. Simes. Russia and America: Destined for Conflict? at The National Interest, June 26, 2016
  16. ^ Viktor Martynuk. Medvedev Confessed: In 1996 Zyuganov Won the Presidential Election at KM.ru, February 22, 2012 (in Russian)
  17. ^ Simon Shuster. Rewriting Russian History: Did Boris Yeltsin Steal the 1996 Presidential Election? at Time, February 24, 2012
  18. ^ Georgi Gotev. Gorbachev: ‘I am ashamed by Putin and Medvedev’ at EurActiv, February 4, 2016
  19. ^ Tom Bower (2010). Oil: Money, Politics and Power in the 21st Century. — New York: Grand Central Publishing, p. 94-97 ISBN 978-0-446-56354-3
  20. ^ Owen Matthews. How Boris Berezovsky Made Vladimir Putin, and Putin Unmade Berezovsky at The Daily Beast, March 24, 2013
  21. ^ Luke Harding. Boris Berezovsky: a tale of revenge, betrayal and feuds with Putin at The Guardian, March 23, 2013
  22. ^ Boris Berezovsky found dead at his Berkshire home at The Guardian, March 23, 2013
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