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Mafia State Spies, Surveillance And Russia’s Secret Wars (2000)

by Luke Harding(Favorite Author)

3.84 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0852652496 (ISBN13: 9780852652497)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

review 1: The redoubtable and ever-readable Luke Harding delivers a comprehensive and often jaw-dropping expose of the modern Russian State which, according to him is more riddled with corruption and dirty dealing than the mould in blue cheese. He is especially vitriolic about President Putin whom he deems has brought one of his old KGB operating manuals to bear on the task of (mis)governing the country, and has also signed off a shady Secret Service/Organised crime alliance to do much of his dirty work at arm's length. Putin is portrayed as a paranoid throwback, an arch-nationalist with a rabid counter-revolutionary agenda.This book was written 3 years before Russia's 2014 annexation of the Crimea, but Harding's analysis of the earlier Russian-Georgian conflict reads the Ukrainian ... morerunes with chilling accuracy. Harding unsurprisingly becomes the star of his own scathing journalistic despatches after someone in the higher eschelons of power decides his waspish journalism has gone far too far. The FSB have already warmed to the task, deploying their Kafkaesque 'operational psychology' (subtle and not-so-subtle dirty tricks) to unsettle Harding and his family. They then contrive for him to be be deported for trumped up bureaucratic irregularities. This stunt backfires on them spectacularly and Harding even gets a temporary reprieve. But he knows when he is beaten and pulls the plug.The whole episode reads like a cross between theatrical farce and a cold war thriller. The most telling pages are surely those Harding gives over to his 13 year old daughter Tilley as she pens an eloquent teenage rant on the way these antics have turned her life in Moscow upside down.Harding's researched critique of the power elites in Russia is so thorough-going and relentless it might be tempting to assume he is over-egging the pudding just to satisfy his customary 'Guardianista' audience. But of course his following book is all about the spying activities of the NSA in America, so he's not only even-handed, but pretty fearless too. I certainly wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of either the FSB or the NSA. How Luke Harding hasn't found himself on the business end of a polonium-tipped umbrella for his troubles beats me. Respect! (But minus one star for the shouty title.)
review 2: [Mafia State: How one reporter became an enemy of the brutal new Russia] is a great account of how Russia has fallen under dictatorial control of Vladamir Putin and the countries secret service, the FSB. It also covers the harassment the author, Luke Harding, suffered at the hands of the FSB while serving as the Guardian's Moscow correspondent. While the book is primarily an account of Harding's time in Russia, it provides excellent historical context of Russia transition from the USSR to the capitalist dictatorship and explores events that have occurred in Russia's "sphere of influence" which lays the foundation upon which the rest of the book is built.My favourite parts of the book were the chapter's recounting the Russia's invasion of Georgia in 2008 and the chapter discussing Russia's growing ultra-nationalist movement. Harding's account of Georgian war is both entertaining and informative and provides extensive insight about the state sponsored paramilitary forces that terrorised Georgian civilians on Russia's behalf which I was unaware of before reading the book. The chapter on the ultra-nationalist movement within Russia is as fascinating as it is terrifying and highlights a growing movement that believes that Hitler's only mistake was invading the Soviet Union and is responsible for the murder of countless members of Russian's non-Slavic communities. Harding's coverage of Putin's flirtations with these groups is a particular highlight and provides a chilling insight to the decision making process of his regime. The only issue that bothered me about this book is the inconsistency in tone within the book. Throughout the course of the book Harding recounts 2 cases of ethnic cleansing in Georgia and Kyrgyzstan with the stoic, emotionless tone that you would expect from an award winning journalist but toward the end of the book he includes a essay written by his 13 year old daughter which seemed like nothing more than a teenage rant (albeit a very well written teenage rant) caused by the actions of her father, which Haring talks about weeping over. This inconsistency is jarring, I'm guessing Harding did find the cases of ethnic tension emotional but the way he presents it in the book is as if the readers should feel greater empathy for his daughter and her angst-ridden adolescent outburst than they should for murdered and displaced civilians.Overall though this book was a entertaining and informative read and if the author's intention was to quash any enthusiasm his readers have for travelling to Russia, I can can say that, in my case at least, he has 100% succeeded. less

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