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Sunday, April 22, 2007

THEY'RE ALL THIEVES.

Extracts from this article by Rupert Wingfield-Hayes BBC News, Moscow
Reinforce what the socialist party were saying when the so-called communist party was denying it all those years ago.
State Capitalism like any other form of Capitalism creates rich and poor, millionaires and paupers. If we are to believe this BBC correspondent he was invited to the home of a billionaire’s daughter.

“This week we learned that Mr Abramovich is one of a growing list of hyper-rich Russians.
According to Forbes magazine Russia now has 60 billionaires.
Unlike Mr Abramovich, most of them live in Moscow, which, if I'm not much mistaken, makes the Russian capital home to more billionaires than any other city in the world.” “It is quite a change for a place that 15 years ago had no millionaires, let alone billionaires." How exactly these people have got hold of such vast wealth in such a short time is a very good question, and one many ordinary Russians would like answered. It is one reason why Russia's richest people like to keep their identities and their lifestyles secret.”
There is talk of “the secret city were enormous green fences, at least 20 feet (6 metres) high, and topped off with closed circuit cameras.” A different world.
Suddenly we plunged out of the forest, and in to a different world. It was a little like a scene from Doctor Who. One minute we were in Russia, the next in Beverly Hills.
Svetlana's "cottage" was a spectacular 3,000 sq m Art Deco pile. How big is that? Big enough for an indoor swimming pool, a cinema, a bowling alley, a ballroom, and the piece de resistance, its own indoor ice rink!
"This is our newest house," Svetlana told me as we walked past a large bronze sphinx in the gardens. "My father's been building it for five years."
"So how many other houses do you have?" I asked.
"A couple in Moscow, two in the south of France, and one in Corsica," she said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. She shops in Paris and Milan, where she flies on one of her father's private jets.
Gilded cage. All these toys have not made Svetlana a happy girl. "I live in a gilded cage," she told me. "I have no friends and no freedom." I did feel sorry for her, but only a little.

A mile down the road, firmly back in Russia, I went to see Mrs Rima. The 75-year-old showed me around the one-room shack she built with her own hands. She survives on a pension of £60 a month. I asked her what she thinks of the rich people who live behind the high green walls.
"They're all thieves," she said. "All that money is stolen from the people." It's a view millions of Russians would agree with. Fifteen years ago everything in Russia was owned by the state. Today a quarter of Russia's economy is owned by 36 men.
We in the Socialist Party continue our policy of advocating common ownership of the means of production, i.e. Socialism. The World for the Workers.

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