Our kind of journalism.

They conduct their business Russian-style, and if they happen to grab their opponent by the balls under the negotiating table then they certainly won't be giving any liberal-sounding interviews afterward.

* * * *

This is not a problem limited to one particular company in Russia. These are claims that could have been brought against John D. Rockefeller, who burned down the oil plants of his rivals, or to the railway man Leland Stanford, who as governor of California spent half the state budget on his own railroad, or to the American media king William Clark, who so wanted to become a senator that he had his thugs organize a shootout at a polling station, as a result of which a member of the election committee was killed and a ballot box was stolen. Clark became a senator.

In such circumstances the Kremlin has two possible routes. The first is to use the arguments of the losers to re-investigate the privatizations.

The second is to support the interests of Russian business even if in the process this means supporting the interests of criminals. At the end of the day the British government wasn't afraid to send troops to India in defense of what would today be considered the criminal interests of the East India company. Similarly, the British were not afraid to initiate the Boer War to protect the interests of Cecil Rhodes, who has more bodies on his conscience than the Izmailovsky gang.

Britain ruled the waves because it fought for its industrialists and not against them.

"The 3rd Aluminum War." By Yulia Latynina, Moscow Times, 8/15/01 <-- Johnson's Russia List #5391, 8/15/01.