In the high-stakes drama of Russian economic reform, the "red director" is the acknowledged bad guy. Popular wisdom has it that the presence of the Soviet old guard is an impassable roadblock to industrial restructuring. The quicker they are swept away by corporate raiders, whether foreign or Russia's own young financial Turks, the better. The stereotype is eloquently defined by raider par excellence, Boris Berezovsky: "These are production guys whose one thought is whether the press is stamping," he sneers.
Yet reality has proved more complex. The one Russian industry privatized according to IMF orthodoxy - aluminium - became a mess. The battles for control of the giant, cash-spewing Siberian smelters produced dozens of corpses. The winner of the war was a secretive newcomer to the world economy called Trans-World Group (TWG), based in London but controlled by two Uzbekistan-born brothers, Lev and Mikhail Chyorny, who have taken up Israeli citizenship.
The Russian and foreign press reported at great length on the tactics of TWG and its once official protector, former vice-premier Oleg Soskovets. The group has so far milked its acquisitions through tolling operations, investing little in plant modernization.