Although I was already on board with this thesis, I just finished reading two more “Putin is the worst” books and I’m even more convinced than ever that Putin’s Russia is a giant criminal enterprise and that he is one of the worst threats to peace and civilization and just plain human decency in the world.
The books are Red Notice and Freezing Order, both by Bill Browder. Browder was one of the first Western businesspeople to invest in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. The son of a brilliant mathematician and the grandson of a prominent member of the American Communist party, Browder decided early to pursue a career that didn’t involve academia or politics. Of course, he ended up involuntarily up to his neck in the latter.
At first, Browder’s Hermitage Capital was very successful. And then he began to learn the hard way that the Russians didn’t play by even the bare minimum dog-eat-dog-but-with-a-fork rules of Western high finance. I won’t go into the details of the Byzantine theft of Hermitage-owned shares by corrupt Russian oligarchs, for two reasons - you might want to read it yourself, and I honestly couldn’t recount all the details even if I wanted to. Suffice to say that Browder learned that Russia wasn’t a safe place to invest. And then he learned that Russia wasn’t a safe place for anything or anyone, including Russians.
*****
You have probably heard of the Magnitsky Act, which imposes strict financial sanctions on Russian oligarchs (and now other foreign despots and kleptocrats) proved to be involved in human rights abuses. Bill Browder was the person responsible for getting this legislation through Congress and then getting many other countries to pass similar laws. The Magnitsky Act is named for Browder's Russian attorney and friend Sergei Magnitsky, who was murdered in his jail cell for refusing to cooperate with Russian officials' attempt to frame Bill Browder for their own crimes. Red Notice (named for the Interpol arrest warrants that the Russians repeatedly used to harass Browder) tells the story of the crime, the story of Sergei Magnitsky's ordeal, and the story of the creation and implementation of the Magnitsky Act.
It's a very compelling story, heartbreaking and infuriating and terrifying and inspiring all at once. Both of the books (more about Freezing Order in a bit) make very clear that once the guardrails are off, and people like Putin are free to operate with relative impunity, then anything can happen and no one is safe.
If you are a person who hears about an abuse of power by a high government official or a wealthy and powerful person, and thinks "They can't do that, they can't get away with that," then you should read these books immediately and understand that every time a politician pushes for less regulation on commerce and lower taxes on billionaires and fewer protections for workers and consumers and less support for whatever is left of the the social safety net, what they want is a country just like Putin's Russia, where they CAN do that, and they can and do get away with it, all the time. Given the opportunity, the strong will always use their strength to crush the weak. Always. Without exception. 100 percent of the time.
*****
I have mixed feelings about Bill Browder. By his own admission, he exploited the early post-Soviet privatization schemes, buying shares of newly privatized companies that ordinary Russians sold for practically nothing, just so they’d have enough cash for food and other essentials. He represented the worst of exploitative capitalism, and his work helped to enable the runaway greed and polarizing wealth inequality that turned Russia back into a vassal state. And I don’t know that he ever really acknowledges his part in the exploitation of ordinary people. In fact, I don’t know that he ever really acknowledges that exploiting ordinary people for profit is a bad thing to do. He is an unapologetic capitalist.
*****
On the other hand, he is a capitalist who believes in a certain standard of decorum and decency in which people who play by the rules are rewarded for their intelligence and hard work. Never mind that he either doesn't acknowledge or maybe just doesn't understand that the rules of this game are inherently unfair and that only the already-rich and already-powerful can really win. That would be a whole different book
Without giving away too many details (and again, I couldn’t even if I wanted to), Browder’s company, Hermitage Capital, was victim to a stock-dilution scheme that almost bankrupted him. My only knowledge about stock dilution came from watching “The Social Network,” and I don’t know why such a thing is or ever was legal in the United States but as we have established, we’re not talking about the United States and it doesn’t seem that any kind of financial skulduggery is off-limits in Russia. Browder gradually pulled all of his money out of Russia but had already attracted the attention of criminals in and out of the Russian government. They figured out a way to frame Browder for a $230 million dollar tax fraud, and then tried to coerce his lawyer Sergei Magnitsky into testifying against Browder. Magnitsky not only refused; he blew the whistle on the real criminals and was arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and eventually beaten to death for his trouble.
Bill Browder made it his personal mission - there’s no other way to put it - to avenge his friend, not by violence but by targeting the only thing that Putin and his thoroughly corrupt cronies care about - their money and their right to travel outside godforsaken Russia any time they want. He worked his many contacts in the US and around the world to write, refine, and pass into law versions of the Magnitsky Act, which imposes crippling financial sanctions on foreign dictators and anyone else involved in human rights abuses. The original US Magnitsky Act targeted only Russians, but its successor Global Magnitsky Acts here and in other countries impose sanctions on anyone implicated in human rights violations.
While Red Notice tells the story of the Magnitsky Act’s creation, Freezing Order tells the story of Putin’s fury in the aftermath of its passage. Putin has been obsessed with the Magnitsky Act since the day it became law, and has worked relentlessly to try to overturn it and to get back at Bill Browder. Browder has been harassed, followed, surveilled, threatened, and even arrested under spurious Interpol “Red Notices.” Interesting fact - as retaliation for the original Magnitsky Act, Putin put an end to US adoptions of Russian orphans. And so when Donald Trump and Donald Trump Jr. claimed that their 2016 conversations with Russians were about “adoptions,” that is actually half true. They were negotiating with the Russians over repealing the Magnitsky Act, which was the price for allowing adoptions to resume.
Browder’s self-described “obsession” with honoring his friend’s legacy has cost him a great deal. He cannot travel internationally without fear of abduction or arrest under another trumped-up pun-intended Interpol warrant. And at the end of Freezing Order, he alludes to family strife related to his frequent absences and his wholehearted dedication to the Magnitsky case. I’m sure that his wife has endured a lot. It must be hard to be married to a person who pours themself out so completely for a cause. But of course, those people tend to be the ones who get world-changing things done.
Sometimes, I miss a book when I finish it. I miss the characters if it’s a novel, or I miss the author’s voice. That’s how I felt after I finished Red Notice and Freezing Order. I missed Bill Browder’s relentless intensity, his only-I-can-save-the-world-from-Putin bravado. I don’t think I could live with that level of intensity but I admire his courage, and I respect what he has accomplished. I respect his refusal to back down, and his determination to make sure that his friend’s death was not in vain. And I really respect his refusal to shut up, no matter what it costs him.
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