:: Russia - Comment on Yegor Gaidar

In Russian Orthodox tradition I waited three days until Gaidar was buried before adding a brief comment to WP editorial "Russia's Yegor Gaidar championed freedom" (December 17, 2009), which you've published in JRL 2009-#230 as 7. Washington Post editorial: Yegor Gaidar: In Russia's rocky soil, he planted seeds of liberal democracy. Nothing new in the comment, just wanted to remind of alternative vision of the post-Soviet history as oppposed to the 'reformist' mythology that is being created now.

Yegor Gaidar is a sad figure in Russia's history, but definitely not a hero. A hero is someone who has the courage to stand up for what is right, undoes wrong, is fearless, and cares nothing for himself.

As Gaidar's associate Chubais stated, the so-called 'young reformers' saw their historical mission in 'hammering the last nail into the coffin of the Soviet communism.' Abstractly that sounded like a right cause. The only problem was that these doctors fearlessly dared to perform a surgery of the patient knowing almost nothing about the nature and functioning of the Soviet economy. Gaidar himself openly confessed (probably the only one among the 'reformers' who did it honestly) that he knew nothing about the defense and defense-related economy of the USSR. And he refused to listen to those economists who warned him of applying western economic models to the structurally militarized Soviet economy. So, from this point of view he definitely was not a "clear-eyed" scholar.

As I mentioned, to me Gaidar is a tragic figure, for his possibly good aspirations in fact allowed crooks like Andrew Shleifer and Jonathan Hay (alongside with many other vultures who flew together to feast on the prostrate ex-Soviet economy) to enrich themselves during the privatization which many western scholars call a "piratization of Russia." Instead of using the shock therapy as a coup de grace for the Soviet economy and curing lancet for the Russians' well-being, they applied a butcher's knife to cut the most attractive and creamy parts out of the Soviet economic heritage, dividing them among a narrow circle of their associates.

Neither Gaidar nor Chubais ever listened to sober honest voices like of those who cautioned them against building a robber-barons capitalism in Russia.

So, Gaidar did not help to build liberal economy in Russia or even to introduce its principles in the post-Soviet society. And the major reason for that was not the die-hard communists' opposition, but Gaidar's and his men's poor knowledge of the subject they dared to deal with. Their fearlessness was rather a 'valor of ignorance.'

None of the so called young reformers of the Gaidar's government suffered together with the majority of the Russians the poverty or crash of all hopes. The majority of them are prospering even in Putin's Russia. To be fair, Gaidar himself was probably the least financially successful person among the 'shock therapists.'

For all practical purposes Gaidar was used as a dummy to cover the massive looting of Russia by national and international crooks. I guess that the realization of this sad fact played a decisive role in his premature death.

[Alexander Belkin, Deputy Executive Director, Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, Moscow]

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