Kiev
IN THE 1990 FILM adaptation of John le Carré's The Russia House, Katya (Michelle Pfeiffer) gives the English book publisher played by Sean Connery her take on how little the perestroika (economic restructuring) and glasnost (openness of expression) policies of the Gorbachev era have actually done for the country.Unable to find a place to buy a decent pair of new shoes, she says, "Everything is corrupt and incompetent. Perhaps different people are now stealing."

"Keep your voice down," says Connery nervously.

"Complaining is our new human right," she explains. "Glasnost gives everyone the right to complain and accuse."

The first part of that equation is still true. The Russian system is still wildly corrupt and incompetent. When he took power then-president and now Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ran on a platform that there would be a drastic change and his Russia would be one of a "dictatorship of the law." Much was made of the "rampant graft and malfeasance" of the Boris Yeltsin years and we were all assured that the days of the "wild east" and "cowboy capitalism" were over.

Except that in comparison with how the Putin regime has played out, Yeltsin and even some of the more egregiously avaricious members of his government could be classified as Red Cross relief workers. Everything that has any real value has been concentrated in the hands of the state and the few members of Putin's inner circle. These are operatives who can trace their roots back either to their days with him in the KGB,

The most recent example has been the creation of Russian Technologies, a state corporation that not only controls Rosoboronexport, the state arms export monopoly, and a number of defense and aerospace enterprises, but also is seeking to take control of over 500 Russian enterprises. Critics have charged that Rostekhnologia, as it is called, is an extension of Putin's power, as it is run by Sergei Chemezov, a KGB colleague of Putin's from the days when they served together in Communist East Germany.

"There is no question that Chemezov is the right hand of Putin," said one Moscow-based analyst. "He is one of the handful of people who have the phone number that Putin answers personally--even in the middle of the night."

Critics of Rostekhnologia call it "an industrial version of Gazprom [the Russian state-owned natural gas monopoly]" and say that placing enterprises under the Rostekhnologia umbrella makes oversight of their operations much more laborious and gives Chemezov and his deputies control of the revenue streams from all of these firms. Like the state gas giant, the new company has almost no constraints placed on it by the government, nor would it necessarily be inclined to respond to market forces.

Unfotunately, the second part of the quote by Michelle Pfeiffer's Katya, the right to complain and accuse, is no longer true in Russia. The Chief of the General Staff, Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, found out this week just how extinct that privilege now is, when he was fired and replaced by an ally of Russian Defense Minister Anatoliy Serdyukov, Gen. Nikolai Makarov.