Loyalty to Russia or to Wealth? 58 Percent of Russia’s Richest have a Second Passport

Paul Goble

            Staunton, March 10 -- Fifty-eight percent of Russians with a net worth of 50 million US dollars or more have dual citizenship, and 45 percent say they would consider moving permanently to live in another country, both higher figures than even in Latin America where 41 percent say the currently have a second passport.

            These figures from The Wealth Report 2018 prepared by the Frank King Consulting Company were reported in Russia in Moscow’s Gazeta newspaper earlier this week (gazeta.ru/business/2018/03/07/11675077.shtml). Not surprisingly, they have raised questions about the ultimate loyalties of these supposed pillars of the Putin regime.

            One Russian blogger, who writes under the screen name El Murid, says there is “nothing particularly new in this research.” It has long been known that wealth in Russia is highly concentrated and that those with the most money think first and foremost about keeping it rather than promoting the development of their homeland.

            “It couldn’t be otherwise,” he argues, “because in the framework of the Western capitalist system, Russia always will be in the position of a colony; and this means that the only significant motive for any native administration will be exporting capital and acquiring foreign citizenship” (zen.yandex.ru/media/el_murid/nacionalno-orientirovannaia-elita-5aa2661a77d0e614e1ca293b).

                Consequently, El Murid continues, “with this elite, the country has not future and cannot have one. Either it has a future or we do. The two can’t exist for long at one and the same time.”  And as it become clearer what the facts are, he says, Russia “is approaching a stage when regardless of anyone’s desires, the question of its transformation arises.”

              The existing system is in fact “already in its agony.”  Changing it, like changing any other system is “always a revolutionary process; and like in any revolution, the most important question besides that about power, of course, becomes” if put in simplest terms “who will pay” and who will benefit.

           

            In a country like Russia where one tenth of one percent owns a predominant share of the economy, the answer is “obvious: either they will pay or the rest of the people will” because “there are no other resources for carrying out revolutionary transformations,” El Murid continues.

            That does not mean, however, “that a revolution (from above or from below) will lead to any particular result. It isn’t enough to have resources; one must be able to effectively make use of them.”

            Given that the current regime is the most ineffective in the history of the country, El Murid argues, any revolution from above almost certainly would reflect that reality.  But a revolution from below might not achieve anything either. Most recent revolutionary attempts from below have failed. 

            El Murid concludes that despite that and despite the fact that many knew about the real attachments of the current Russia elites, “such investigations are good to the extent that they show who precisely is the enemy of the future of the country and who precisely must be liquidated in a political and economic sense for the country to have a chance for a future.”