The relationship between the economic base and the superstructure, between money and politics, is as transparent in Russia as anywhere in the world. "Follow the money", could well be a marxist principle. Boris Berezhovsky, in prudent self-imposed exile, says he is 100% prepared to finance a new political party to oppose Putin, his former creature. "Berezhovsky ... has sought in recent months to reinvent himself as a democratic activist ... Previously known more as a Kremlin insider than a defender of human rights, Mr. Berezovsky has opened a $25 million foundation that is bankrolling everything from an electronic archive of Stalin's victims to the museum that honors the late dissident Andrei Sakharov. Last month, he offered his television network as a refuge for protesting journalists who quit NTV rather than submit to a takeover by a state-controlled energy company." (International Herald Tribune IHT) BB: 'Putin is really destroying what we created in the last ten years.' The new party will be dedicated to 'liberalism'. Chris Burford London
