Alexander Lebedev: Rich Advice

Lebedev, a potent symbol of Russia's huge inequities, says Moscow needs to change

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Today, the word oligarch is bandied about in the media, but it is a misnomer. The oligarchy is no longer detached from, or in opposition to, the state. It is an extension of it. Many of the very rich people who once ran Russia still run it — but they have been brought to heel by a vastly more powerful Kremlin. Their wealth is "granted" to them by a Kremlin that demands loyalty and is prepared to use all means available to enforce it. They serve the Czar (or President, or Prime Minister) at his pleasure. They understand very well that to defy the Czar is to sacrifice everything they have. They are glorified managers or subordinates who enjoy great wealth that can be taken from them at any minute, and the only way they know to secure their fortunes is to endear themselves to the state — to become cheerleaders for it. "Russia is ruled by the same people who own it," says Masha Lipman, a political analyst at Moscow's Carnegie Center. "It's not even a legitimate question to ask whether the 'oligarchs' ... work 'for the Kremlin,' for it is sometimes impossible to draw the line between the 'oligarchs' and the Kremlin."

Herein lies the reason for Lebedev's split personality. He is indeed an oligarch — the Russian magazine Finans reported that he was the 25th wealthiest person in the country in 2008, up from No. 46 in 2007. But he has never bent the knee to Putin. In Lebedev we find, if you like, the good oligarch — the Russian with whom Westerners can do business. He has made friends with prominent people in London (Elton John, Margaret Thatcher) and Hollywood (Kevin Spacey, John Malkovich), floating freely between boardrooms and state dinners. In March, Lebedev traveled to Washington with Gorbachev, who was slated to meet with U.S. President Barack Obama. "I do and say whatever I want," he says. "If somebody wants to kill me, I do not treat it as enough reason to stop doing something, if I'm pursuing certain values or principles. It's simple." (See pictures of Obama in Russia.)

The Question Lenin Asked
What is not simple is Russia. That quintessentially Russian query — What is to be done? — continues to bedevil the Kremlin. The country is, after all, falling apart. The price of oil is down sharply from its high of $147 a barrel in July 2008. The markets have been badly shaken by Putin's attack on steel giant Mechel, the breakup of the oil conglomerate TNK-BP (during which the Russians none-so-subtly squeezed out their British partners), and last summer's war with Georgia. And then, of course, there's the global financial crisis, which has hit Russia particularly hard. On top of all the economic woes, there's a shrinking population, a military that remains something of a joke and a problem with AIDS. Plus, you still can't (or shouldn't) drink a glass of tap water in central Moscow.

All this has aroused Lebedev's reformist zeal. More than ever, he says, Russia needs an independent judiciary and legislature, a free press, real elections, real political parties. The oligarchs, he says, understand that the system cannot survive forever. They are scared and looking for handouts. (At the top of the list is Oleg Deripaska, head of investment firm Basic Element, which has interests in the aluminum, energy and financial-services sectors among others, and recently received a $4.5-billion infusion from the state.) "Once they found themselves in trouble they started this sort of SOS signal, calling on Putin's door, 'Give us the money,' " he says. Lebedev says he is not receiving any government cash, and that the crisis and the bailouts are only widening the chasm between the "first tier" of people who own (and run) Russia and everyone else. "The first tier, this is where the crisis happened. As far as the second tier of the country is concerned, there could be no crisis because the crisis was there permanently, for 500 years."

Russia's problem, Lebedev thinks, is not Putin but the bureaucracy, which is sprawling and antidemocratic, and stymies reform. "As far as Putin is concerned, I'm not blaming it on him. I think he doesn't see it. These TV channels pocket billions of dollars in exchange for flattering Putin." Lebedev has hopes for Medvedev. He was impressed with the President's decision to meet with Novaya Gazetta editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov and Gorbachev earlier this year, following the killing of yet another Novaya Gazetta reporter. "Medvedev ... said he's a full supporter of the Gulag Memorial project," Lebedev says. (Memorial was the most important human-rights group to emerge from the perestroika era. For years it has pushed for a monument in the center of Moscow recalling the victims of the gulag.) Putin, Lebedev says, would never back anything that subtracted from the Soviet record. "I think Putin thinks that this commemoration would spoil the everyday spirit," Lebedev says. "Stalin, for them, represents the state, and sometimes you can see Putin as sort of — in that way." (See pictures of Putin.)

But is Lebedev the reformer he sees himself as, or does he play another role? "There's a belief — and this existed in Soviet times — that allowing a pressure valve of dissent and allowing certain voices out there is important for legitimacy," says Robert Amsterdam, a Canadian attorney in London who has represented Khodorkovsky and frequently blogs about Russia. "In a strange way, and whether or not Lebedev is part of this, he may well be seen as a demonstration of the regime's legitimacy." As long as he doesn't "cross any of these invisible lines, Lebedev may actually shield the Kremlin from further criticism," Amsterdam says.

Lebedev understands that he has multiple uses — that he alternately angers, inspires, amuses and mystifies the Kremlin, fellow oligarchs, democratic activists and Western allies alike. Yet this much seems indisputable: simply by calling for a more open Russia and denouncing the myopia and ignorance of "the power," Lebedev is helping to make room for a new kind of politics. This is the overwhelming sense you get when speaking with him: that possibilities are opening, that things are happening that you are only vaguely aware of. You sense — you hope — that these things will somehow deliver Russia from its current doldrums, and they may very well do that. Lebedev is in charge of this puppet show. And that must be a good thing.

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