Gaidars revolution the inside account of the economic transformation of russia

fter the collapse of the Soviet Union, a team of young economic reformers led by Yegor Gaidar
worked to create a new economic future for Russia. Against an overwhelming threat of looming
hunger and civil war, they created a market economy which is still in place today. In the face of
crisis, a process of ‘shock therapy‘– involving the end of price regulation, the introduction of
privatization and a reduction in public spending – appeared necessary. Their plans have been the
subject of controversy ever since – the path to the new economy was not smooth and Russia continued
to struggle with economic crises throughout the 1990s. Yet Gaidar’s plans have been widely praised
for saving the country from complete collapse.

A

For the fi rst time in this book, the participants in the process reveal their experiences during those
frantic days, their insights into Yegor Gaidar and of the formation of post-Soviet Russia. In doing so,
Gaidar’s Revolution provides a unique perspective on contemporary Russia, making it an
indispensable resource for understanding its economic and political complexities.


Petr Aven is a Russian banker and economist who served as Minister of Foreign Economic
Relations for the Russian Federation (1991–2). He holds a PhD in Economics from Moscow State
University and is now Chairman of the Board of Directors of Alfa Bank, Russia’s largest commercial
bank. He is a trustee of the Centre for Economic Policy Research and a member of the Board of
Directors of the New Economic School in Moscow.
Alfred Kokh is a writer and economist who was a Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation
in the 1990s and a chief architect of Russia’s privatization. He holds a PhD in Economics from the St
Petersburg Mathematics and Economics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and is the
author of A Crate of Vodka: An Insider View on the 20 Years That Shaped Modern Russia and The
Selling of the Soviet Empire: Politics and Economics of Russia’s Privatization.


“Aven and Kokh provide a fascinating history of the second Russian revolution of 1989–92, as told

by participants to participants, and focusing on the central role of Yegor Gaidar. Even the most
imaginative novelist could not match the drama and clash of personalities as vividly as these
interviews.”
William Nordhaus, Sterling Professor of Economics, Yale University
“In 1990–3 Russia was transformed from a centrally planned to a market economy (with Russian
characteristics) – a period of economic and political turbulence for all involved. This fascinating
book records, through interviews two decades later, the recollections, reflections, and re-evaluations
of key leaders in that dramatic transformation. A remarkable collection.”
Richard N. Cooper, Professor of Economics, Harvard University
“This fascinating book records the recollections and ideas of the key participants in Russia’s attempts
at market reforms, with a special focus on the central role of the brilliant and cunning Yegor Gaidar.
For anyone who lived through these reforms without the benefit of hindsight, or who has studied what
went right and what did not, the key players and events jump off the page with action and insight. No
one ever knows all of history. This oral history allows us to know far more than we have to date.”
David Lipton, First Deputy Managing Director, International Monetary Fund (IMF)



New edition published in 2015 by
I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd
London • New York
www.ibtauris.com
First Published in the United States in 2013 by The Gaidar Foundation
Copyright © 2013 Petr Aven & Alfred Kokh
Translation Copyright © 2013 Petr Aven & Alfred Kokh
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced
into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without
the prior written permission of the publisher.
ISBN: 978 1 78453 122 5
eISBN: 978 0 85773 958 2

A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available
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CONTENTS

List of Illustrations
Foreword by Leszek Balcerowicz
From the Authors
A Book Written Under Duress
1.

GENNADY BURBULIS: “Yeltsin Served Us!”
Yeltsin: Together and Nearby
The Appearance of Gaidar
Démarches and Resignations
The Disintegration of the USSR
About Gaidar

2.

ANATOLY CHUBAIS: “We Destroyed the People’s Idea of Justice with Voucher
Privatization”
Muscovites and St Petersburgians
The Inevitability of Change
With Yeltsin or Without
A Complicated Choice
Reforms and the Collapse of the USSR

October 1993
We Never Fought in Thirty Years

3.

ALEXANDER SHOKHIN: “We Took as Much Power as We Could”
How Many Programs Were There?
Recollections About the Candidates
The Kamikaze Government


The Election of the Premier
Between Gaidar and Chernomyrdin
Farewell to Gaidar
Wine, Yeltsin, and the Stillborn Coalition
Good Premier
4.

ANDREI NECHAYEV: “It’s Indecent to Blame the Former Regime for Everything”
The Status of the Country
Hunger and Cold
Concerning Money
Separatism
Working with Gaidar
When Things Settled Down
On Mistakes
Back to Gaidar
Present Day

5.

VLADIMIR LOPUKHIN: “That Was the Bone-Breaking Machine”
Why Gaidar?
Price Liberalization
Lukoil, Yukos, Surgutneftegaz
Work and Dismissal
A Change of Elites
An Extremely Decent Man
Crazy Tempo

6.

STANISLAV ANISIMOV: “It Was a Nightmare”
Foreign Practices of the USSR
Academician Velikhov and Copper Export
How the System Broke Down
“There Would Have Been Hunger”
Attempts to Keep the Union
Young Reformers


“Putin Practically Committed Crimes”
Could the Union Have Been Saved?
7.

VLADIMIR MASHCHITS: “We Were Like the Bourgeois Specialists of the Civil War
Period”
Revolution Is an Impulse
Why Gaidar?
Public Politics

The Collapse of the Union
The Gaidar Team as Military Specialists

8.

ANDREI KOZYREV: A Bona Fide “Kamikaze”
At the Soviet Foreign Ministry
The Russian Foreign Ministry
Change of Course
The Attitude of the West
Humanitarian Aid
Internal Contradictions
Hot Spots
CIS and NATO
Resignation

9.

SERGEI SHAKHRAI: “Those Events Made Yeltsin More Isolated, Angry, and Vindictive”
Parliament Work
The Yeltsin Team
The Putsch of 1991
The Collapse of the USSR
The Belovezh Accords
About the Government
Gaidar and Yeltsin

10.

PAVEL GRACHEV: “I, the Defense Minister, Did Not Allow the Army to Break Up”

Service Before 1991 and the GKChP Putsch
Ministerial Rank
Relations with NATO


Dismissal and Afterward
On Gaidar’s Government
The Chechen Campaign
The Army and the Putsch of 1993
11.

JAMES BAKER: “You Still Have Not Built a Free Market Economy”

12.

YEGOR GAIDAR: “I Made a Bad Public Politician”
First Conversation: On the Resignation
Second Conversation: On Morality and Effectiveness in Politics
Third Conversation: On War
Fourth Conversation: On Privatization

13.

What We Learned

14.

Conclusion

15.

Afterword by Carl Bildt
Appendix: Biographical Listing
Notes
Plates


ILLUSTRATIONS

1.

Yegor Gaidar, Moscow, 1993. (© Lev Melikhov / The Gaidar Foundation)

2.

President Boris Yeltsin and Yegor Gaidar in Moscow, March 28, 1993. (© Igor Mikhalev.
RIA Novosti)

3.

The last picture in the office of the prime minister. Gaidar and his advisers in December 1992.
(© The Gaidar Foundation)

4.

Yegor Gaidar in the office of the Institute for the Economy in Transition, 1993. (© The Gaidar
Foundation)

5.

Sergei Filatov, Yegor Gaidar, Ruslan Khasbulatov, Boris Yeltsin, and Yuri Yarov at the
Congress of People’s Deputies of the Supreme Council in the Kremlin. (© Valery Kivelä /
Kommersant)

6.

First Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Yegor Gaidar at a meeting of the Supreme Council of
Russia, March 1992. (© Valery Kivelä / Kommersant)

7.

Boris Yeltsin and members of the Presidential Administration of Russia, 1994. (© ITAR–
TASS)

8.

Rally in support of Boris Yeltsin in Moscow, March 1993. (© The Gaidar Foundation)

9.

Rally in support of Boris Yeltsin and Yegor Gaidar in Moscow. (Archive © ITAR–TASS)

10.

Director of the Institute for the Economy in Transition, Yegor Gaidar, at a press conference on
March 19, 1997. (© Alexander Dryaev / Kommersant)

11.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Shokhin, 1992. (© Valentin Kuzmin / ITAR–TASS)

12.

Boris Fyodorov, Anatoly Chubais, Alexander Shokhin, and Vladimir Shumeiko at the IX
Extraordinary Congress of People’s Deputies of Russia, 1993. (© Alexander Sentsov / ITAR–
TASS)

13.

“Burbulis was the founding father of the Government Reform,” 1992. (© Alexander
Chumichev / ITAR–TASS)

14.

“We all came from science,” Alexander Shokhin, the Academician Stanislav Shatalin,
Gennady Burbulis, and Yegor Gaidar, 1992. (© Photo from the personal archive of Alexander
Shokhin)


15.
16.

Alexander Shokhin, Edward Dnieper, Tatiana Shokhin, and Mikhail Poltoranin at Alexander’s
dacha in Arkhangelskoye. (© Photo from the personal archive of Alexander Shokhin)
Yegor Gaidar, Petr Aven, and Alexander Shokhin at his dacha in Arkhangelskoye, 1992. (©
Photo from the personal archive of Petr Aven)

17.

Negotiations on external debt. Horst Koehler (Deputy Minister of Finance, 1992, and

President of Germany, 2004–10), Petr Aven, Alexander Shokhin, and Boris Yeltsin, 1992. (©
Photo from the personal archive of Petr Aven)

18.

Minister of Foreign Economic Relations Petr Aven, 1992. (© Yuri Abramochkin / RIA
Novosti)

19.

Press conference of First Deputy Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar, 1992. (© Alexander
Chumichev / ITAR–TASS)

20.

Yegor Gaidar and Andrei Nechayev, December 1, 1992. (© Alexander Makarov / RIA
Novosti)

21.

First Deputy Minister of Economy and Finance Minister Andrei Nechayev, 1991. (© Valentin
Cheredintsev / ITAR–TASS)

22.

Chairman of the Russian State Committee for State Property Management, Anatoly Chubais,
during a press conference at the White House regarding privatization. (© Sergey Nikolaev /
Kommersant)

23.

Minister of Foreign Economic Relations Petr Aven and Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly
Chubais (left). (© Valery Khristophorov / ITAR–TASS)

24.

Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly Chubais, September 18, 1992. (© Boris Kaufman / RIA
Novosti)

25.

Petr Aven, presidential representative for relations with industrialized countries (G7), Boris
Yeltsin, and George Bush, Munich, 1992. (© Photo from the personal archive of Petr Aven)

26.

Petr Aven and Boris Yeltsin in negotiations, 1992. (© Photo from the personal archive of Petr
Aven)

27.

Yegor Gaidar and Gennady Burbulis at the Congress of People’s Deputies, April 18, 1992. (©
Alexander Sentsov / ITAR–TASS)

28.

Boris Yeltsin and Gennady Burbulis at the Davis Cup tennis tournament, 1992. (© Alexander
Yakovlev / ITAR–TASS)

29.

Sergei Shakhrai, Gennady Burbulis, and Mikhail Fedotov at the VII Congress of People’s
Deputies of the Russian Federation, 1992. (© Valentin Kuzmin / ITAR–TASS)

30.

Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Sergei Shakhrai and Mayor of St Petersburg Anatoly
Sobchak at a meeting to discuss the issues of constitutional reform. (© Sergey Smolski /
ITAR–TASS)

31.

Russian Defense Minister Pavel Grachev during a visit to the 31st Airborne Brigade of the
Bundeswehr, Germany. (© ITAR–TASS)


33.

Boris Yeltsin presents the Minister of Defense Pavel Grachev with an order “For Personal
Courage.” (© Alexander Sentsov / ITAR–TASS)
Vladimir Mashchits, Chairman of the State Committee for Economics 1991–6. (© Evgeny
Dudin / Forbes Russia)

34.

Stanislav Anisimov, Minister of Trade and Material Resources of the RSFSR, 1991. (©
Valentin Cheredintsev / ITAR–TASS)

35.

Minister of Economy and Finance of the Russian Federation Yegor Gaidar, and Minister of
Fuel and Energy of the Russian Federation Vladimir Lopukhin at a meeting of the government
of the RSFSR, December 5, 1991. (© Aleksey Fighters / RIA Novosti)

36.

Russian President Boris Yeltsin, Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev and Moldovan
President Mircea Snegur at a conference in Istanbul. (© Alexander Sentsov / ITAR–TASS)

37.

Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev at a meeting with Russian
Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev. (© Eduard Pesov / ITAR–TASS)

38.

Alfred Kokh (left) and Anatoly Chubais. (© Photo from the personal archive of Alfred Kokh)

39.

Boris Nemtsov, Alexander Kazakov, Alfred Kokh, Yevgeny Yasin, Anatoly Chubais, Yakov
Urinson, and Oleg Sysuyev at the funeral of Viktor Chernomyrdin, 2010. (© Photo from the
personal archive of Alfred Kokh)

40.

Yegor Gaidar and Alfred Kokh (left). (© Photo from the personal archive of Alfred Kokh)

41.

Michael Manevitch, vice-governor of St Petersburg. Behind him, Alexander Kazakov, then
deputy prime minister, Alfred Kokh, and Anatoly Chubais. (© Photo from the personal archive
of Alfred Kokh)

42.

Boris Nemtsov and Alfred Kokh. (© Photo from the personal archive of Alfred Kokh)

43.

US Secretary of State James Baker speaks at the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. (© Valentin
Kuzmin / ITAR–TASS)

44.

Minister of Economy and Finance Yegor Gaidar and Deputy Prime Minister and Finance
Minister of Poland Leszek Balcerowicz at a press conference, December 1, 1991. (© Yuri
Abramochkin / RIA Novosti)

45.

Barricades in front of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR. (© Andrei Soloviev / ITAR–TASS)

46.

Journal Ogonek, no. 36, dated August 31, 1991.

47.

October 4, 1993. The storming of the White House, Moscow. (© ITAR–TASS)

32.


FOREWORD

I HAVE READ THIS BOOK WITH THE GREATEST INTEREST and—sometimes—deep emotions. It deals with
one of the most important developments in modern history, described and analyzed by people who
were not mere observers of this crucial process but its participants. And they—the reformers, the
Gaidar team—were on the side of individual freedom, especially economic liberty, which is the key
to prosperity. Therefore, they were on the right side of history and on the side of basic human rights. I
perceive it to be a great injustice that they are still so often blamed for results of actions that were not
theirs or were beyond their control.
The book contains a lot of interesting information and insights presented by key players in
Russia’s early transformation. For example, conversations between the reformers help to clarify how
their economic views and programs developed in the 1980s.
The book shows how the Soviet Union during 1990–1 was moving toward collapse without the
full knowledge and intent of the key political players. This reminds us of the law of unintended
consequences in history. The conversations in the book depict a striking contrast between the
understanding of and support for reforms in the USSR, and then Russia, presented by the Bush-Baker
team in the 1980s and early 1990s, and the neglect and ignorance on this issue displayed by Clinton
and his administration after the 1992 US elections.
From the historical perspective, including the fairly recent civil war in Yugoslavia, the
amazingly peaceful dissolution of the Soviet Union was a miracle. How this was achieved, how the
danger of a potential catastrophe was prevented, is one of the topics of this fascinating book. It was a
historic achievement by key political actors such as Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Gaidar, Kozyrev, and
Grachev. The book also sheds light on one tragic exception—the war in Chechnya—and suggests that
it could have been avoided if not for the miscalculations and blunders of some people around Yeltsin,
and Yeltsin himself.
The authors do not shy away from asking some difficult questions. One of the key questions is

whether the liberal-democratic camp (the early reformers) could have fared better politically if it had
pursued a different political strategy: that of building its own political party much earlier and
distancing itself from Yeltsin when his path clearly diverged from the views and program of the
reformers. This is a dilemma best discussed by the insiders; an outsider like me can only offer some


comparative remarks.
First, whether and when a person engages in electoral politics depends on his or her personality
and preferences. I perceived myself as a technocrat entrusted in early September 1989 with a historic
mission: to stabilize Poland’s economy, which was in the grip of hyperinflation, and transform it into
dynamic capitalism. It was for me a sufficiently large mission to which to dedicate 100 percent of my
time and energy. I think Gaidar’s attitude was similar; in the Czech Republic, Václav Klaus’s views
and preferences were different. My first period in government ended in December 1991, and only in
early 1995 did I decide to enter electoral politics by becoming leader of the free-market party
Freedom Union. After the elections in autumn 1997, we created a governmental coalition with a
political bloc organized around Solidarność, and together we pushed some important reforms—first
of all major privatizations, fundamental pension reform, and local government reform.
Second, the inherited economic situation in the former Czechoslovakia was much less dramatic
than Poland’s in 1989, not to mention Russia’s in late 1991 and earlier. The leader of the economic
team in Czechoslovakia simply had more time to dedicate to non-economic issues than the leaders in
Poland and Russia.
Third, the reformers’ party, headed by Gaidar, achieved quite a success in the elections in late
1993, becoming the largest party in the Duma. The same happened with the reformist party in Poland
in 1991 and 1993. Neither in Poland nor in Russia had the reform parties achieved a majority in the
parliament. And the electoral success of the Choice of Russia party in 1993 appears to be all the
greater, given the economic dislocations suffered by the population, not so much because of the
reforms but rather owing to the inherited economic situation. The demise of the reformist party in
Russia during elections in 1996 should therefore be explained by the developments of 1993–6. One of
these had probably been the perceived association of the party with Yeltsin’s unpopular policies
during this period. But what would have been the alternative scenario? Would the communists have

won the elections if the party had distanced itself from Yeltsin? And, if so, would Russia have
followed the Lukashenko path? This danger could not have been dismissed out of hand, and certainly
it must have existed in the minds of reformers in Russia. The reformers in the Czech Republic,
Poland, and other Central European countries did not face such dramatic choices.
Finally, the political success of an early economic reformer does not guarantee in every case
great success for economic reforms. Much depends again on personality and preferences. The extent
of market reforms in Klaus’s Czech Republic is not larger than in other Central and East European
(CEE) countries, and the growth record of that country is worse than Slovakia’s, for example. And
sometimes the reverse is true: people perceived as non-reformers pursue reforms, forced by
circumstances or because their previous opposition stance resulted from insufficient information or
political posturing. According to the book, this seems to have been the case for Viktor Chernomyrdin
while he was prime minister of Russia. One should, therefore, differentiate between the political
success of the reformers and the success of the reforms. When in 1998 I proposed a flat tax in Poland,


it was blocked in parliament, but a couple of years later it was reintroduced largely by the parties that
previously had opposed it. I regard this as one of my greatest triumphs.
One of the issues discussed in this book (on a much larger scale) is the kind of economic system
that emerged in Russia in 1990, and the rather disappointing economic performance of Russia from
1991 onward. Inflation remained very high for a long time, and gross domestic product (GDP) started
to grow only during the second half of 1999, after a substantial decline. How to explain these
developments? First, I would note that the statistical decline in GDP in Russia overstates the decline
in welfare—to a much larger extent than in the CEE countries—because the share of military
production was much larger in Russia. Therefore, the shrinkage of the military sector was much more
pronounced in Russia than in the CEE, and this substantially reduced GDP but not overall welfare in
Russia. Building fewer tanks does not lower the general standard of living. However, even with this
correction, the question of Russia’s rather disappointing economic performance largely remains.
This fact cannot be blamed on the defective economic knowledge of the Gaidar team. My own
personal impressions as well as those of other people strongly suggest that they were in this respect
certainly on par with their Polish colleagues.1 However, the Russian team acted under much more

difficult and constraining circumstances. First, they inherited some time-bombs that we in Poland did
not have. The main one appears to have been the authority granted to the Central Bank as early as
1991 to increase the ruble money supply. And the ruble zone was supported by the International
Monetary Fund (IMF)! The uncoordinated emissions of the ruble were sufficient to prevent a
successful early stabilization.
Second, the Gaidar team had much less time for reforms, and during this short time faced much
stronger political constraints than the Polish team. We in Poland had more than two years (from early
September 1989 to December 1991) for a decisive reform push, facing first a friendly parliament, and
later at least a non-hostile one. It allowed us to launch widespread liberalization, to dismantle
monopolies, to reorganize parts of public administration, to start a decisive macroeconomic
stabilization, and to begin the privatization of state-owned enterprises (though, even under these
rather favorable political circumstances, privatization was delayed relative to my plans). Gaidar and
his team, as I have already stressed, had much less time and faced much stronger political constraints.
And Gaidar had to deal with issues I did not have to—for example, preventing conflicts in some parts
of Russia. This more limited room for maneuver most likely explains the more limited economic
liberalization in Russia, with less de-monopolization of the economy than in Poland—features that
unfavorably affected the later evolution of the Russian political and economic system and, as a result,
its performance. The Russian reformers dealing with privatization faced uncomfortable trade-offs that
did not exist in the CEE countries, such as whether to permit loans-for-shares programs. On the one
hand, it was not difficult to foresee that this scheme was likely to strengthen the oligarchic groups,
resulting in negative political consequences. On the other hand, one could not dismiss as a mere
fantasy the danger that, in the absence of such programs, there could be a pro-communist shift in


Russia.
In view of the time-bombs the Russian reformers had inherited—the short time they were in
government, the political constraints they were exposed to, the special dilemmas they had to face—it
is a fundamental intellectual error (or intellectual dishonesty), and a great injustice, to blame them for
the evolution of the Russian politico-economic system and for the related rather disappointing
performance of the Russian economy. Given these circumstances, it is very hard to see what more or

what else they could have done. They were rather brave kamikazes (to borrow an expression used in
this book) battling against prevailing odds, and in the service of a mission of truly historic
proportions. They deserve deep respect, and especially deep gratitude.
And this is particularly true of Yegor Gaidar. The conversations in the book strengthen my
personal impression that he was an exceptional individual. He combined very high moral standards,
intellectual rigor, vast knowledge, decisiveness, and mild manners. What a rare combination!
I am sure he was a hero of contemporary history in Russia—and the world. It is very important
that this great book helps to restore his rightful place in public opinion. And we should continue our
efforts in this respect.
Leszek Balcerowicz
Warsaw, October 2012


FROM THE AUTHORS

THIS BOOK IS A COLLECTION OF OUR CONVERSATIONS with members of Russia’s first post-communist
government, which took office in November 1991 (as well as with James Baker, then US secretary of
state). This government is usually named after Yegor Gaidar, the leader of its economic segment. In
fact, we initially wanted to talk about Gaidar, as we wished to protect his memory from stupid myths,
dismayingly unfair accusations, and diverse lies. But the very first meetings with our interlocutors
exceeded the boundaries of “conversations about Yegor” to embrace a much broader range of issues:
the situation in the USSR before the Yeltsin-Gaidar reforms, possible alternative scenarios, the
reformers’ mistakes and compromises, reasons for successes and failures, and so on.
Being economists, we realized that an important factor in the success of any undertaking is the
comparative advantages of the players. We had two. The first was our participation in the events
under discussion. Second, we had close and trusting relations with each of our interlocutors. We think
these advantages enabled us to harvest unexpected and new information from the protagonists of this
book, and to learn and understand something new to us and our prospective readers.
The Gaidar government was in office when the Soviet Union broke apart, the sociopolitical
system changed in every former Soviet republic, and the foreign-policy direction of the country

shifted, among other things. We were amazed at how different the recollection of the same events by
different participants could be, and how differently they interpreted the facts.
As it turns out, everyone has “a truth of their own” (even if people belong to the same political
forces, the same “team”). This does not mean, though, that recollections are pointless or that it is
impossible to learn “the real truth.” On the contrary, honest evidence from the participants in those
events—especially as they were sincerely prepared not only to defend what they had done but also to
speak about their mistakes or hesitations—gave us a maximally clear idea of “what really had
happened,” and helped us to draw necessary conclusions for the future.
Most of our conversations were published on the website of the Russian edition of Forbes in
2010–12 (and in the print magazine in abridged versions). We would like to express our profound
gratitude to Vladimir Fedorin, who supervised the project at the magazine and later on became the
editor of the book. We are especially grateful to the founding father of Polish economic reforms,
Leszek Balcerowicz, who kindly agreed to write the foreword, and to Carl Bildt, who wrote the


afterword—and of course to all of our interlocutors.
Petr Aven, Alfred Kokh


A BOOK WRITTEN UNDER DURESS

Do not give what is holy to dogs; and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under foot and turn and maul you.
MATTHEW 7:6

I DO NOT WANT TO WRITE THIS MATERIAL . It comes out clumsy, heavy, spiteful, and I do not want to.
And I understand why: I simply do not want to harp on the same tune for the thousandth time. That is,
that Gaidar saved the country from famine and war and gave a chance for freedom and other things
our opponents call rubbish.
I read the online comments on his death. There was some (and I think it was an abundance) of
our good old Russian meanness that would not have occurred to either my associates or myself if any

of our brave critics had died. For example, Doctor of Workers’ Sciences Vasily Shandybin died
shortly after Yegor, but did any of us make such comments as “a cur’s death for a cur” or “may this
never stop”? No. Yet Vasily Ivanovich never spared us. He made false allegations sometimes, and, to
be frank, told lies.
But they let Yegor have it. Not just one or two. They were enthusiastically jeering. What can I
say—fine Christians. No match for those attenuated Czechs or Portuguese. Gavriil Popov and Yuri
Luzhkov were surprisingly creative, saying that Gaidar made people starve to death.1 They claimed
they were telling the truth. They called a lie—blunt, deliberate, and cynical—the truth.
Neither fasting nor prayer can rid me of the blind disgust and hatred for these “kind people.” I
have no Christian meekness. That makes my words come out clumsy and heavy. Anger smothers me
and grudge grips my chest. It would not have mattered if it had been all about me. Honest! I let those
dear Russians have it often. As they did me. We’re even in that sense. But Yegor … he loved them
all. I know that for sure. He stoically endured the abusive words. I thought his enemies would finally
shut up after his death. They should be glad, they outlived him! But no! They still kick him although he
is dead—they dance on his coffin, and they sneer and try to outdo one another in their attacks. And
they lie, lie, lie.
I was being buffeted by my thoughts when Petr Aven called me and said: “Listen, I think there
has been so much absurdity around Yegor and our whole government that we cannot keep silent any
longer. I reject the apologetics to which some of our friends are given and the cheap tales spun by
Luzhkov and Popov. If you are ready for a calm and maximally objective dialogue, I would like us to


write about Yegor, our government, and those times.”
“Am I ready for an objective and impartial dialogue? Hell, yes! I am a model of impartiality and
don’t-give-a-shit-ism. Let’s do it. I’ve been wanting to do it for a long time. In the best traditions of
objectiveness and impartiality. It’s just the right time to do it, given my elegiac and mellow mood.
Quiet and lyrical, melancholy and conciliatory. Isn’t that the right mood for creating an objective and
impartial text?”
“Terrific! I will come over tomorrow and we will have a talk.”
The next day Petr was punctual, elegant, ironic, and erudite. His speech was brisk and clear. He

spoke in rapid, clipped phrases. I could tell he had thought about everything.
Alfred Kokh, February 2010

PETR AVEN: I think we must speak about Gaidar. The latest article by Popov and Luzhkov is highly
telling. And the reaction to it is even more so. I think it is very important to tell the truth. Naturally,
everyone has their own truth, but if everyone tries to be objective, we will get a more or less correct
impression of him and his role in the history of our country.
ALFRED KOKH: I am very glad you had this idea. I am itching to talk about Yegor with you, because
there are few people who can discuss him without being pompous or resorting to liberal or greatpower slogans.
AVEN: It is very important not to fall into extremes. On the one hand, some say that Gaidar is
responsible for everything that is going on in Russia—the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the
destruction of the defense industry, economic ruin, and lots of other things. On the other hand, frankly,
I am equally irritated by pompous speeches declaring that Gaidar and his team, to which I am honored
to have belonged, saved Russia and that if not for us then Russia would have been hungry and cold.
KOKH: Petr, let’s analyze the main myths created around Yegor and that government.
AVEN: I am ready. And the first myth I propose to analyze is that no one wanted to join the
government at the end of 1991—this is widespread. They claim that only the Gaidar team dared to do
what nobody else wanted to do. I think this is not true. Plenty of people other than Gaidar were
seeking power, and many of them wanted to head the government. The name Yuri Vladimirovich
Skokov was mentioned most often. The day before the decision was made, everyone was wondering
who Yeltsin would prefer—Gaidar or Skokov?
KOKH: It is hard for me to judge what alternatives he had then. I was still working in St Petersburg.
Nevertheless, Yeltsin chose Gaidar. Why was that? Who played the decisive role? Golovkov?


Burbulis? Gaidar himself?
AVEN: I think we will come back to this issue. And now I would like to speak about one more thing—
a topic of recent debates—that the Gaidar team saved Russia from hunger, cold, and a civil war.
Being a liberal economist, I think that neither starvation nor cold happens if the government does not
meddle in the lives of people. Although in 1991 shops were empty, and it was impossible to buy

anything without having to stand in line, I did not see a single dead horse being cut into chunks in the
middle of Tverskaya Street in Moscow, the way it was in 1918.
I also remember that restaurants were open in Moscow in 1991, and no one actually died of
hunger; and although there were panicky rumors of cold, there was no terrible cold, actually. In my
opinion, excessive praise provokes excessive criticism.
KOKH: I have nothing to say about restaurants operating in Moscow and St Petersburg at that time. I
know nothing about it because I had no money to go to a restaurant. I was the chairman of the
Sestroretsk district executive committee. It may seem to us now that it was a fun job, but life did not
look so easy to me back then. I remember a truck bringing chicken to a shop once. The shop was about
to close, and people elected an organizing committee to guard that chicken through the night so that
“the shop staff did not give it to their preferred customers.” I had to assign a policeman to guard the
truck because people refused to go home otherwise.
There were countless deputy commissions formed at the district council to distribute
humanitarian aid: Bundeswehr food rations, sneakers, ragged clothes. There was Chinese canned
meat, some foreign-made by-products, and it was very humiliating—alms, handouts. But it was highly
welcome. The West was simply saving us from hunger. So it would be rather naive to say that
everything was fine because restaurants were open and people did not eat dead cats, dogs, or rats.
Luzhkov and Popov went too far in claiming “thirty-six cases of death by starvation” in
Zelenograd. They lost their sense of proportion. I don’t doubt that there may have been some who
starved to death, but there are some today as well.
Just recently [February 4, 2010] I saw this on the internet: “RIA Novosti reports a dual tragedy
on Zelenogradskaya Street: a father and a daughter died, the father died of a heart attack, and the
neglected daughter died of starvation. The Moscow police are verifying circumstances of the death of
a 40-year-old man and his three-year-old daughter. According to preliminary forensic reports, the
man and the baby girl died about 30 days ago. Forensic experts presume that the father and the
daughter died during the New Year holidays. Life News said that the man, 40, died of cardiac arrest,
while the three-year-old baby girl with disabilities he was raising alone died of starvation. The
bodies were taken to a morgue. A criminal case is pending. There was a similar incident in October
2009. A man and his son were found dead in an apartment house in Moscow’s Khoroshevsky district.
The man was 32 years old, and his son was 18 months old.”

So what? Naturally, that is tragic, but it does not occur to anyone to blame Luzhkov for those
deaths. And one more thing: assuming the incidents really happened, it is quite characteristic that
Luzhkov and Popov, who speak about these tragedies, do not feel their culpability. And they were in
charge of the Moscow authorities (Zelenograd included) at that time. Obviously, if these deaths
happened for real, they are much more responsible for them than Gaidar! These gerontocrats have
totally lost their capacity for self-criticism.
AVEN: Concerning the hunger deaths in Zelenograd, I fully agree with you. I am not an apologist of the
Soviet regime, as you understand. My wife spent four hours a day buying food because she had to go
to every nearby shop to find anything.
KOKH: Was that after you came back from Vienna?
AVEN: That was both before we went to Vienna and after our return. About Vienna: when colleagues
and friends came to visit me there, I took them to butchers’ shops. It was a shock for them.
KOKH: Yes, I took a picture of myself in front of a butcher’s shop in Helsinki in the same period.
AVEN: True, things were very bad in Moscow and the whole country back then. It was impossible to
buy anything—life was miserable. When they claim now that the Soviet Union was heaven on earth,
they lie. But we must understand there was no great famine, either. People bought chicken somehow.
But it might have come to famine if liberalization of prices had been delayed further.
KOKH: Exactly! I realized then we were very close to that. And, by the way, I told Yegor (although it
is bad to say that) that we should have waited for famine to begin. God forbid—naturally that is an
exaggeration. But if it had really happened and people had experienced it briefly, then our actions
would have been appreciated. But hunger was stopped by our efforts five minutes before it started
knocking on the door, and now people can say whatever they want.
AVEN: That is correct. However, if Gaidar had come to power a year earlier, probably he could have
implemented reforms instead of urgently saving the country. That is a big problem for reformers: they
start passing reforms just when the country needs salvation, and that frequently contradicts the
reforms.
KOKH: Absolutely. I spoke a lot about that with Yegor, and he agreed. What he did was not market
reforms or liberal reforms or shock therapy. For the first five months he was doing what he had to do,

and he had no choice whatsoever. He did whatever any responsible government would have done in
his place.


AVEN: Not quite, but that’s almost the case. That is what I am talking about: such situations are
inherently a mix of reformism and salvation.
KOKH: “Salvation” sounds pompous to me. There is another way of looking at it. Do you remember
what they taught us at school: the principle of rational egoism? If you want to keep your position, you
have to do that; otherwise they will wipe you out. Besides, the situation required either rapid action
or no action at all.
AVEN: Judging by what you say, any person in Gaidar’s place would have done the same.
KOKH: Yes, if he is a responsible person who is about doing the job and not just stealing money.
AVEN: That is correct.
KOKH: And now the question is whether the previous government, of Silayev, was irresponsible. That
is, Silayev seemed to be a very responsible person. But his government did nothing but the most
necessary things, and failed to prevent the exacerbation of problems, which made the Gaidar
government policy so painful.
The Harvest 90 was a pure scam.2 And the agreement with Noga, which deprived Russia of its
sovereignty—who did all that? 3 Silayev and Kulik? Yes! The damage, both material and
reputational, is impossible to evaluate. It was huge. As our national leader likes to say: Who went to
prison? They wrote about some impossible reforms, the 500 Days program. Absolute daydreaming.
The Silayev government, which ruled the country for 18 months, was totally inadequate to the
situation!
AVEN: But aren’t you forgetting that the Soviet Union and, naturally, the Soviet government existed
practically throughout the term of Silayev’s office? Although Russia’s sovereignty was proclaimed on
June 12, 1990, it was formal and inoperative to a large extent. That government had no powers to
implement extensive reforms.
KOKH: Maybe I’m going too far here, but that stagnation for two or three years made the natural and
simple steps Gaidar took, such as price liberalization, so brutal and shocking, so painful, and so
politically colored.

There is no politics in price liberalization, just as there is no politics in appendicitis surgery. If
it is not removed, the patient dies—that’s it. Why all those discussions? When to act, to what extent,
and in which sequence—all this idle talk is bullshit. It had to be removed yesterday, immediately and
drastically. Partial removal would be more painful and in the end have the same result.


AVEN: Obviously, if everything had started simultaneously with the events in Poland, the Czech
Republic, and Hungary—that is, in 1989—lots of things could have been done more easily and with
lower costs, both monetary and political.
KOKH: As you remember, the year 1991 did not start with the appointment of Gaidar! Gaidar took
office on November 7 (which is symbolic, by the way). The government got down to business only in
January. You spent two months laying down the normative framework for the reforms. Actually,
operational control of the economy only started on January 1.
AVEN: Not quite. Even before the New Year we had to obtain and distribute hard currency, buy drugs,
distribute rubles, run industries. Operational control started on the very first day.
KOKH: But the government started doing its real work on January 1.
AVEN: It would be more correct to say: the government started to operate within its normative
framework on January 1.
KOKH: Correct. And actually, the first act that showed us we had a new regime was price
liberalization. That was supposed to be the main thing.
AVEN: That actually was the main thing.
KOKH: But, before that, many things happened in the year 1991. For instance, the April monetary
reform done by the Soviet government of Valentin Pavlov. I am amazed they do not speak about that at
all. It was Pavlov’s reform, not Gaidar’s, that nullified people’s savings! As the district executive
committee chairman, I remember that reform perfectly. I was the local official who executed that
reform! I remember that all deposits bigger than 5,000 rubles were frozen for five years.
AVEN: No one remembers that at all anymore.
KOKH: By the moment Gaidar and his team took the governmental office, those deposits were long
gone from the USSR Sberbank. All the deposits were withdrawn by the Soviet government and
covered the Soviet budget deficit. So Gaidar could not simply nullify people’s savings (or, as some

say, steal them). There was nothing to nullify. Remember the film Operation Y, where a character
said, “There is nothing to steal, everything was stolen before us”?
AVEN: Absolutely. There was no money at all for the last six months. That was the first big lie about
Gaidar—that he was the person who destroyed people’s savings. There were no savings by then;