Life in Putin's Russia

POLITICS: Mafia State,by Luke Harding, Guardian Books, 320pp. £20

HALFWAY THROUGH his dissection of Putin's Russia in Mafia State, Luke Harding is sent by his editors at the Guardianto that part of the Ferghana Valley that lies in Kyrgyzstan. As a power struggle was unsettling the capital, to the north, Kyrgyz nationalists unleashed a ferocious pogrom against the Uzbekh minority there. Although not central to its main thesis, Harding's first-hand reporting of the events is one of the most arresting passages in this important book.

The pattern is familiar from Bosnia, Rwanda, Nagorno-Karabakh and other stations along the borders of competing 19th- and 20th-century empires. Mixed populations that coexisted quite happily in multinational empires are set against each other by unscrupulous elites who find that stirring nationalist violence is an effective way of deflecting attention from their venal domestic policies of gangster capitalism. But Harding’s report underlined the peculiar tragedy of the Uzbeks in the Ferghana: unknown and uncared for by the outside world, their plight is already forgotten.

As the most influential great power, Russia bears much responsibility for the fate of innocent Uzbeks (and Stalin, indeed, created the geographical roots of their misery). But its government appears not to give a fig.

The wider reason for that, Harding argues, is the transformation of post-Soviet Russia into a mafia state where government institutions are hijacked and then moulded into instruments to advance the interests of a criminalised elite at whose apex stands Prime Minister (soon to be restored as president) Vladimir Putin.

Harding tells the story through the tale of his own harassment at the hands of the FSB, successor to the KGB and the particular mafia that has seized control of the Russian state. After a story based on an interview with one of Putin's arch enemies, the exiled oligarch Boris Berezovsky, runs in the Guardian, the newly arrived Harding is subjected to psychological and professional intimidation that over time erodes his and his family's nerves.

Ironically, Harding had very little to do with the Berezovsky interview, which was conducted in London. But once the FSB had him in their sights, there was very little he could do to shake them off. This, of course, gives the book real authenticity, as he is able to describe the creepy intimidation of locked windows suddenly found open, of mysterious alarm clocks going off at 4am. Under such circumstances, one never knows whether the muscle-bound man walking down the street as you take your kids to school is a harmless fellow going about his own business or a thug designed to threaten. Uncertainty, fear and understandable paranoia permeate this book.

But this does not cloud the analysis. Harding’s description of the rise of Russia’s racist right, which delights in murdering ever greater numbers of foreign-looking innocents (usually from the Caucasus), is deeply troubling. He suggests it is the one political force that actually threatens Putin’s mafia state.

Occasionally, Harding becomes a little too self-regarding, such as when he compares himself to Malcolm Muggeridge, one of the few reporters to describe the early purges in the 1930s as orchestrated show trials. He unwittingly implies that he, almost alone among foreign correspondents, had the courage to uncover Putin’s murky side. That simply isn’t true, and a little humility here would have helped.

I don’t always share his political assessment either: I think it took Putin longer to create the mafia state after his rise to power in 1999 than Harding does. He is also perhaps a touch too quick to exonerate the oligarchs and their gangster capitalism of the 1990s for their role in creating the conditions that led to Putin.

Likewise, I think Harding rather absorbs the neocons’ rosy view of Georgia and its current leadership. But these are issues worthy of debate, and Harding has earned the right to his opinions whether by highlighting some of the vilest aspects of official Chechen politics and its murderous collaboration with the mafia state or as he tries to uncover the increasingly Byzantine Kremlinological shifts in Putin’s entourage.

President Medvedev’s recent announcement that he will soon be stepping down to make way for Putin to assume once again the mantle of head of state vindicates Harding’s essential position that this strange leadership duo was essentially a feint, another of Putin’s cynical power plays.

From this bleak moment, Harding’s book makes it clear that Russia has sunk once again into a deep political and social malaise that is going to make the immense challenges facing all of us during the current crisis tougher, not easier.

Misha Glenny's latest book is DarkMarket: Cyberthieves, Cybercops and You