`They Know How To Capitalize On Chaos'

Drums pound and strobe lights flash as Russian rock singer Larissa Dolina belts out a song before 400 employees of JV Dialogue celebrating International Women's Day in Moscow. Suddenly, a fuse blows, and the mike goes dead. Saving the day, company President Pyotr Zrelov, 44, climbs onto the stage, grins shyly, and begins to croon an old movie tune with the chorus "I love my wife . . . . " The crowd roars its approval.

Welcome to the new world of Russian business, improvising its way through mayhem. As one of the earliest U.S.-Soviet joint ventures, Dialogue has blazed its own path ever since it was created four years ago. The brainchild of Zrelov, a former Soviet truck plant official, and Joseph Ritchie, a rich and reclusive Chicago commodities broker, the company started out assembling low-end clones of IBM personal computers backed by Ritchie's initial $5 million investment, later raised to $10 million. Since then, it has blossomed into a sprawling network of more than 103 companies, ranging from banks to real estate.