Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State [Hardcover]

David Satter (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0300098928 | ISBN-13: 978-0300098921 | Publication Date: April 10, 2003 | Edition: First Edition

Anticipating a new dawn of freedom and democracy after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Russians could hardly have foreseen the reality of their future a decade later: a country desperately impoverished and controlled at every level by criminals. This is the story of the 1990s reform period in Russia through the experiences of individual citizens. Recounting in detail the development of a new era of oppression, journalist David Satter conveys the staggering nature of the changes that have swept Russian life, society and ways of thinking. Through the stories of people at all levels of Russian society, Satter describes fraudulent investment schemes, massive corruption, and the intrusion of organized crime everywhere. With insights derived from more than 20 years of writing and reporting on Russia, Satter considers why the individual human being there has historically counted for so little. He also offers an analysis of how Russia's post-Soviet fate was decided when a new morality failed to fill the vast moral vacuum that communism left in its wake.

Editorial Reviews

Review

".... [A] humane and articulate attempt to record the consciousness of ordinary Russians waking up to an unrecognizable historical reality." -- Raymond Asquith, The Spectator (U.K)

".... [V]ivid, impeccably researched and truly frightening." -- Martin Sieff, United Press International/Washington Times

"Satter has.... a reporter's eye for vivid detail and a novelist's ability to capture emotion." -- Robert Legvold, Foreign Affairs

"This brave engaging book should be required reading for anyone interested in the post-Soviet state." -- Newsweek

David Satter must be commended for saying what a great many people only dare to think." -- Matthew Brzezinski, The Toronto Globe and Mail

[Satter]. . . .describes, more compellingly than any abstract theorist could, the consequences of nominal freedom without rule of law. -- Michael Potemra, National Review

From the Publisher

Also Available by David Satter: Age of Delirium

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press; First Edition edition (April 10, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300098928
• ISBN-13: 978-0300098921
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #831,904 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Social Justice Obliterated in Today's Russia, August 3, 2005

By 

Bruce Rhodes "love 2 read" (near Toronto) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State (Hardcover)

David Satter has done a masterful job of exposing the horrifying, pervasive dark side of life in Russia today. The distinctions to be made between politicians, business executives, law enforcement officials and gangsters are often blurred, thanks to a virtual absence of rule of law. The average Russian citizen cannot even afford to trust the cop who walks past him down the street, lest he be shaken down then and there, or taken to jail and held until willing to pay a large bribe to be released.
The author explains that, as the Iron Curtain fell, the powers that be, who had a strong systems orientation (the Communist system was the Russians' diet for seven decades), maintained that systems orientation when they embraced capitalism. Leaders of the post-Gorbachev reform movement blindly assumed that all that was needed to introduce free market mechanisms was to ensure that all property and assets got into private hands. The huge weakness in this approach was the failure to understand the importance of first introducing rule of law. As a result, former Communist Party bigwigs and factory owners set up shadow "daughter" companies to acquire vast business empires for next to nothing; they then funneled profits into offshore bank accounts. Gangs then moved in and extorted protection money from businesses large and small... from large aluminum smelters, down to corner kiosks selling cigarettes. These gangs served as the "roof" to thousands of businesses. With cash flow drained off to Switzerland, employees of these enterprises then went weeks, if not months, without pay. Living conditions fell below even the grim levels experienced during the Second World War: malnutrition skyrocketed and life expectancy dwindled to Third World levels.
Each of the book's thirteen chapters can be read on its own, as if it were an essay. Most chapters relate the chilling, hard facts as Satter has been able to assemble them, while a couple of chapters present the author's opinions and theories on how this dreadful situation could have evolved. Together, the chapters represent a fast-moving, balanced portrayal of the civil chaos in Russia in the past fifteen years.
Chapter one relates the shameful story of the "Kursk" submarine disaster, in which over 100 Russian sailors lost their lives while British and Norwegian offers of help were turned down.
Other chapters relate additional stories in which Russian officials treat their own citizens with callous indifference. Chapter two, for example, lays out the compelling evidence that successful and attempted bombings of innocent civilians in their apartments in the 1990s were carried out not by Chechen rebels, as Russian government authorities suggested, but rather by the country's own Federal Security Service (FSB). The FSB allegedly did this to serve as a pretext for Russia's military actions in Chechnya, and to distract the populace from the myriad of banking and financial scandals that bilked thousands of citizens out of billions of rubles. Other chapters describe the slick, large-scale pyramid schemes perpetrated by financial institutions that wiped out the savings of countless people doing their best to survive in an economy that suffered from triple-digit inflation. Most Russian banks in the 90s were managed by criminal gangs.
A few chapters reveal the complex network of organized crime gangs that operate quite openly in Russian society. Entrepreneurs look upon setting up a relationship with a gang for "protection" as simply a cost of doing business. Scores of tycoons who did not satisfy the financial demands of gangs were tortured or, just as often, murdered in broad daylight in the presence of many witnesses. While some victims never saw their fate coming, others lived in constant fear, especially when they realized that even fleeing to another country was no escape from bandits who were willing to track them down anywhere.
The book goes into great detail on the trials of Canadian Doug Steele, who opened a popular and controversial bar ("The Duck") in Moscow. The bar's success attracted competing gangs, who wanted a piece of the action. Doug was nearly kidnapped, but was saved by his vigilant bodyguards.
For years, the citizens of Vladivostok went without electricity for up to 23 hours a day. Even the hospital was robbed of power; on some occasions, this cost patients on the operating table their lives. Why was the power cut off? In large part the electricity was diverted to heavy industry commandeered by organized crime. At one point Boris Yeltsin himself decreed that the one mayor who really did want to wipe out corruption in Vladivostok, Viktor Cherepkov, was not allowed to remain in power.
Some gangsters ran for office, to add political power to their business and criminal strengths. The public often excused the criminal behavior of such candidates, believing, as they were taught during the Communist era, that the transition to capitalism entailed a period of criminal activity.
One mobster became very popular, building a church, synagogue and mosque to show his humanitarian side.
One of the saddest and most unbelievable examples of the complete absence of justice for individuals involved pregnant women delivering babies in Russian hospitals, only to be told that their baby was dead at birth. The mothers were not allowed to see their allegedly dead babies, and were told that they were cremated. Meanwhile, there is ample evidence that their babies were healthy at birth, and were whisked away from their mothers for the purpose of being sold for adoption by criminal gangs.
I highly recommend this book. Satter deserves credit for having the courage to write it. Whereas I spent a week in Moscow as a naïve teenager in 1974, today, you could not pay me to visit Russia. It's too damn scary, and an individual effectively has no rights. As described in the conclusion of "Darkness at Dawn", Russia has a daunting future: a possible political shift to dictatorship, the risk of total economic collapse, and continued depopulation. It's no wonder that Russians are emigrating in great numbers.

50 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Its all true, but not just in Russia, January 17, 2005

By 

S. Anacker (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State (Hardcover)

This is an absolutely riveting book that well describes the absolute mess that Russia has been in the past 15 years. Satter sugar-coats nothing, and quite appropriately does not strive for "balance" by including any "feel-good" stories. Reading this book will of course not let you know the ordinary moments of happiness that Russians (like all people) feel, but this is because Satter is writing about the economic and political structures of Russia, which really do cause nothing but misery for the vast majority of Russians. This book is valuable precisely because it does not flinch from the darkness. It is a pure chronicle of suffering, something which may be "uncool" among writers these days but which corresponds well to the ordinary person's situation in Russia. Satter also does not make the mistake that so many Russia-watchers do; that of making a false distinction between the "good reformers" and the "bad Putin". They are all actually the same gang.

That being said, I can't give this book 5 stars because underneath the wonderful expository writing I can sense a vaguely repulsive thesis: that Russians are the way they are because of their unique "moral failings". All readers should be aware that Satter was financed by the Scaife crew. This probably makes Darkness at Dawn by far the best book ever funded by these fanatics, but I can't help but wonder if this funding came at a small cost. Why, for instance, does Satter not mention that cronyism, viciousness and lack of concern for human life hardly stops when one exits the borders of the old USSR? Why is he so reluctant to place even a smidgen of the blame on the army of Western advisors and pundits that helped to create and still apologize for the "shock treatment" reform? Do we not live in a global economy these days? Does moral responsibility cease just because we live across an ocean and don't have to stare into the faces of those victimized by our ideology? And what is all this nonsense about the "Russian Soul"? Did US Treasury officials and Washington think-tank hacks also share a cup of this mysterious "soul" when they sanctioned Gaidar's insanity? The other reviewer who noted that one should not break the mirror just because one does not like what one sees hit the nail on the head. I can imagine the Scaife cronies getting off on this bashing of the bad, bad Russians, but do they not draw any conclusions about our own country and our own culture? (Satter does mention that many Russian gangsters copied their methods and slang from Hollywood films!) I understand that the book is about Russia, but no nation is an island these days.
One final note: Vadim Volkov's "Violent Entrepeneurs" is better as a pure description of Russian Organized crime.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An insider tells about Russia, August 1, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State (Hardcover)

Daid Satter is obviously one of the few American journalists who knows the Russian people and their history intimately. I was struck by his compassion for the citizens of Russia and his empathy with their complex history. He brings these people to life in Darkness at Dawn by examining every layer of society. Consequently, we learn so much about the heart of these people and their challenges to do more than merely survive.

While Satter does not paint a pretty picture of life under communism, he certainly tells a powerful story of people whose country continues to undergo major metamorphoses.

This is a wonderful book; I highly recommended that every American read it, especially those who want to learn more about our newest ally.