Cannes, 6 March 2022
by Mark Porter
A Quick Guide: how the oligarchs took control of Russia after the collapse of the USSR, leading to the arrival of Tsar Vladimir Putin…
Shares for bread: State-owned industries, in which the people were issued shares, were sold to private businesses at a fraction of their real value. Most of the people were in financial difficulty and queued to sell their useless seeming shares for cash, without appreciating their true value.
Hello oligarchs: This culminated in the rise of the “Oligarchs“—super-rich businessmen who attributed their rise to the sell-offs of the 90s.
Hello Putin: It resulted in a polarisation of society into the poor and ultra-rich, and increasing autocracy under Vladimir Putin, with promises to provide dignity and basic living requirements.
Hello Adam Curtis: Brilliant film maker whose narratives specialise in untangling complex financial and political stories which connect the 20th with the 21st centuries. See below…