Customer Reviews

Blowing Up Russia: The Secret Plot to Bring Back KGB Terror

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

BOOM! - In late 2003 nearly 4,500 copies of this book were seized and confiscated by the Russian Secret Service (FSB) as they tried to make their way from Latvia printing presses into Moscow. And no wonder. This book focuses on how elements of the old Soviet regime sought to steer Russia away from the liberal reforms since the fall of the old USSR. The multiple apartment bombings which ripped across the country in 1999, killing hundreds, were more than suspicious. The 'terrorists' were condemned and the tragedies quickly used as an excuse to drag Russia into a second wretched war with Chechnya which continues to this day. The book's spotlight on the attempted bombing in Ryazan leaves little doubt as to who the enemy really was.

The book's translation from Russian into English is superb, but the sheer volume of facts and information combined with the never-ending plethora of Russian names makes for a challenging read if you are up to it. The book however is an excellent primer into the "nomenklatura" mindset of corruption, coercion, and intimidation, and should be studied and kept as a grim reminder of what is possible when criminal elements in the state pursue their own political agendas - and how far they will go when the ends justifies the means in the political game of hardball.

Although the book is a study in extremism, there are still some associations to be made on a lesser level. Propaganda, intimidation, and internal investigations which never seem to come to fruition are just a few that come to mind. Despite the collapse of the USSR, Vladamir Putin, has placed many of his former KGB colleagues in positions of authority alongside him.

As Russians celebrate their "freedom" with the shutdown of the independent press, and genocide committed in Chechnya on a daily basis, I have little doubt that the people of Russia are told they are "winning" the war on terror. When the next 9/11 or Madrid like bombings occur, one where all the "evidence" appears overwhelming and points in only one direction, and yet the enemy, elusive as ever and always just out of arms reach, is never caught or convicted, perhaps you will think to read this book.

Alexander Litvinenko is a 20-year veteran of the Russian military, achieving the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel and serving in the KGB Department for the Analysis of Criminal Organizations, only to be arrested for disclosing a number of illegal orders he'd received and imprisoned. He escaped from Russia and received political asylum in Britain in May 2001. Yuri Felshtinsky studied history at the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute and immigrated to America in 1978 where he obtained a doctorate in history from Rutgers. Felshtinsky is a recognized expert on Soviet Affairs and the other of several books on Russian history and politics. In Blowing Up Russia: Terror From Within, Litvinenko and Felshtinsky collaborate to reveal a scathing accusation of the Russian special services, holding them responsible for acts of terror, kidnappings, contract killings, and efforts to steer Russia back to being a dictatorship. Blowing Up Russia also strenuously denounces the war in Chechnya for its deleterious toll on human life and freedom. A sobering, persuasively charged account, Blowing Up Russia is an essential text for Soviet Studies academic reference collections, and should be mandatory reading for anyone having political, cultural, or economic dealings with present-day Russia.

The point both Yuri & Alexander make in there fine investigative journalism, is that Putin had deliberately destroyed the intial shoots of self-government in Russia & he now exercises a transparent form of arbitrary rule known as "bespredel", without limits. This book tells of how Russia's promise of self-government was lost. It is a cautionary tale for all governments and their people; for not only do all goverments lie, they all have secret services, and it was the secret services of Russia, by a masterstroke of brilliance/matched only by brute force, that Putin was crowned President by ends/through ANY means necessary.
I read this primarily to discover Russia's sercret service's modus operandi in its operations to this end and to discern any simularties that the U.S. secret services are using. Where they were alike and where they were different. As everything is secret...your sometimes left with the tip of an iceberg or an event horizon.
In "Blowing Up Russia" Yuri's event horizon was the terrorist apartment bombings, their "9/11". As he got deeper into it he found an inside job done by the FSB, Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation. He teamed up with Alexander, who was murdered by Putin, to literally bury his information. Yuri finially managed to publish this information (this book, of course was immediately banned in Russia).
Yuri proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it was an inside job, and goes much deeper. How deep?
Peter Dale Scott coined the political, "Deep State", where a shadow government actually is pulling the essential strings of policy that REALLY matter in government. This is the territory that Yuri & Alexander uncover in this book. One can draw simularities with our 9/11 to Russia's apartments bombing/all the way to an insde job. Also striking, is the criminal infiltration of the secret services, to where there is no question of its criminal DNA/right down to the very bones of the services existence. It's in your face criminality, not unlike our U.S. banksters of today.
A very informative, cautionary tale, from which numerous conclusions could be made by many readers. A wide audience is deserved.
Both Jefferson and Madison agreed fervantly on two principles: An educated public was necessary for the survival of the country AND that the powers of government belong ultimately to the people who are governed.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED !!!!!

P.S. Max Weber memorably remarked that the decisive means for politics is violence. He also added, that the world is governed by demons, and he who lets himself in for...power and force as a means, contracts with diabolical powers, and for his actions it is NOT true that good can follow from only good and evil from only evil, but that the opposite is true. Anyone who fails to see this, is, indeed, a political infant.

P.P.S. In: Guilt By Association by Jeff Gates the author offers another scenario. Was it the Ashkenazim Crime syndicate(Russain Branch run by Boris Berezovsky) profiled in chapter 5 of the book, who had the means, motive and opportunity to murder Litvinenko in London? Two days after Khodorkovsky lieutenant Leonid Nevzlin arrived in Newark airport on Christmas Eve 2006, Russian Prosecutor General Yury Chaika issued a press release identifying Nevzlin as a murder suspect in the Litvinenko poisoning and seeking his extradition. Litvinenko met with Nevzlin in Israel just weeks before his death.

This book is not about the murder of Alexander Litvinenko. But it is the book that got him murdered. If you imagine Russia as a nation on the mend from its communist sickness, think again. The former KGB and FSB operative (Litvienko) and his academic friend (Felshtinsky) published their book in Russia and it enraged Don Vito Putin. Putin, you'll recall, was the man about whom George W. Bush said: "I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy . . . I was able to get a sense of his soul." As Litvenko lay dying he wrote the following to Putin:

"You may succeed in silencing me but that silence comes at a price. You have shown yourself to be as barbaric and ruthless as your most hostile critics have claimed.

"You have shown yourself to have no respect for life, liberty or any civilized value."

So much for President Bush's soul sense.

This work covers an important subject -- namely the seizure of power in the Russia by the old KGB that is leading Russia back into an oligarchical tyranny. Democracy has been failing and it is only a matter of time (say in the next 10 years) that Russia will once again be a state likely to threaten world security. That is the main theme of this book, and the "how" is that the KGB puts up strawmen such as the Chechen terrorism to create a demand for a strong, central and non-democratic government to provide security (through power) to the Russian people.

The downside to the book is that it is essentially impossible to follow and the facts cannot be verified. The narrative skips around, going back and forth with dates, and the great number of players blithly thrown in almost indiscriminately makes for incomprehensible reading. The author is also guilty of a great amount of repetition. But the most troubling aspect to this work is that it contains absolutely no sources or references. The author promises to make them available to such agencies as will impartially investigate the subject matter of this book, but with no such agency likely to come forward in the next decade, proof of the authors' contentions will probably not be forthcoming for some time, if ever.

Had the book been organized better and written by a professional writer, I would have upgraded it to a four or five rating. The lack of sources and verification is troubling, but the book can serve its purpose of drawing the world's attentions to the problems of its KGB/FBS government even without such verifiable sources. I have no idea how anyone can tout the book as "eloquently written."

The title comes from the FBS's using of bombings (blowing up Russia) to terrorize the Russian population so that the role of the FBS becomes increasingly important. The authors fairly conclusively present evidence that these terrorist actions have been perpetrated by the FBS itself instead of by the Chechens and other disaffected minorities. In this respect, there is much to learn here, and the steadily increasing power of the Russian Security Service, the FBS, the replacement to the old KGB, is something that should cause concern to the US and everyone in the West. Astoundingly, the American media seems blind, deaf and dumb in respect to this development.

I highly recommend this book in spite of my low rating. Purchase and read this important book and attempt to comprehend its facts and contentions, however poorly presented.

Excellent informative book that provides far more than the usual mainstream matter. Thank you Sasha (Sasha is nickname for Alexander) !

The one comedian in this unfortunate affair is the Russian Information Minister who says "He (Litvinenko) probably poisoned himself for the attention ..like a soldier who shoots himself in the foot". LOL. Now THAT's Entertainment.

From what I gather, Litvenenko was no Mother Theresa. An agent of the FSB (the KGB -renamed), which means he probably killed people. I have no idea, but it makes sense. So, he had a change of heart, defected to Britain, and was killed sometime later (by a radioactive isotope in his sushi). And no one says anymore: "It's too murky to know if it was in fact murder". Everyone now agrees (except the Russian Information Minister), it was murder.

So why kill him? It looks as though he was upset at the murder of another Russian journalist/author, Anna Politkovskai. She was gunned down in 2006, in her apartment building. Also a defector, she was writing books about everything bad that is Russian. I think her major faux pas was tattling on some apartment building explosion (that killed 250 people) and pointing out that it was a False-Flag operation for the Chechnyan war (committed by Putin or WHOMever is in charge over there).

It's all so murky if you try to read about it. The point is: They killed him. They killed her. And they were famous. They'll kill you too, so "shut up and take it". They are definitely taking pointers from the Kennedy killings, no one messed with the nazi's after that affair (including MLK and so many others)..

Vaya con Dios, traitors..

I simply read the first chapter which was more than enough! The old KGB simply has played a shell game of reorganization. The game of power and terror is still the same, just the labels and some of the terminology has changed. The recent events in Georgia is a case example of what Aleksandr has warned about. Putin is a cold and calculating operative, and he wanted the Georgians to attack South Ossentia. Now there is another terrorist bogey to scare the Russian people, the Georgians! The Russian military responded quite heavily with an invasion. The Georgians, as well as the Ukranians, Poles, and others, and the West are being told: DON'T MESS WITH PUTIN!

As several customer review's allready have pointed out - this is a book with an agenda. It does not help that the authors to a great extent refuse to reveal their sources, but want us to take their alligations at face value or that the book is financed by Berezovsky who is a player in the game the book describes. If you search objective and balanced information about contemporary Russia, you will simply have to look elsewhere. Are you ready to make your own sound judgement of the story that you are told in order to pick out what seams reasonable and what seams more like conspiration theories, this is a read-worthy book.

An example of an important and trustworthy story in the book, is the one that the secret services themselves stood behind the so-called terrorist attacks on compartment-blocks in Moscow and other towns in Russia in the months leading up to the 2000 president election. Not surpringly, the story is made trustworthy by being backed by other sources and named witnesses.

An example of an important and undocumented story, is to go far in claiming that in reality it is the FSB that controls the Putin administration and not the Putin administration that controls the FSB. No hard evidence is given for their claim outside their of line of argument, a line of argument that have many of the characteristics of a classic conspiration theory where the fact that you present controversial accusations in itself is a prove that you have reached a deeper understanding than other people.

The book contains an enormous gallery of persons, making it almost impossible to remember all of them and to judge who is important to remember and who is not. To be able to document that they were right, if one day the real truth comes out, this is understandable and neccesary. In order to make the book more readworthy it is highly contra-productive.

Russians I have discussed the book with, have compared people's attitude towards Litvineko's book, with their attitude towards Solshenitsyn's books in the 1970s - while the book is widely discussed, few people are ready to admit that they have read this book. Among those who do, it is likely that ambivalence is a description that will ring many bells. At one hand the book gives some important new insights. On the other it is weakened by conspiration theories, undocumented claims, and an unbalanced hate and bitterness towards the ones in power.

Interesting that a man who denounces the Russian FSB as a nest of intriguers and liars asks us - as a career KGB/FSB officer - to accept his words in this book at face value. After all, if FSB officers are such masters of deceit, why should anyone believe him now?

I don't doubt that much of the book may well be true, especially the blowing up of Russian apartment blocks in 1999 to kick off the second Chechen War. It's not just Russian intelligence agencies capable of such black operations, as the "P2 conspiracy" in Italy back in the 70s attests. The problem lies with the clandestine nature of Litvinenko's sources, which come across like mere shop gossip. Reader/listener beware.

There are inconsistencies galore. Yeltsin is painted a great democrat, even though he sent tanks to blow holes in the Russian Parliament building. The adoration of General Pinochet is attributed to Putin, though anyone who knew Russia in the 90s well remembers the love for Pinochet's Chile evinced by Yeltsin's staff. It was also Yeltsin who created the authoritarian Russian presidency after his destruction of Parliament in October, 1993 - not Putin.

The fact is, that Yeltsin created the FSB, as he did the oligarchs. Putin did not get where he is by being part of the anti-Yeltsin opposition. After Yeltsin it seems there was a power struggle for Russia between the FSB and the oligarchs, and the former won. But they could not have done so without Yeltsin's patronage. Yeltsin needed immunity from prosecution by the Russian Duma when he stepped down; a strong FSB guaranteeed this protection. Perhaps also he was afraid of the oligarchs whom he created in 1996, and wanted a counterforce to keep them in check.

At any rate, this book comes off like some internet conspiracy theory. While the core of its argument of FSB black operations may well be true, keep in mind that it was commissioned by Boris Berezovsky - no angel himself, and possibly responsible for assassinations in his own right.