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Tragedy of Russia's Reforms: Market Bolshevism Against Democracy
The demise of the Soviet Union in 1991 left Boris Yeltsin with a fundamental choice about how to transform Russia’s economy and society—a "bottom-up" civic-democratic revolution with the participation of the country’s populist forces, or a "free-market" revolution from above that involved an alliance between the Yeltsin camp and the nomenklatura, the powerful bureaucrats and factory managers left over from the Soviet era. Yeltsin’s choice of the latter course brought on an economic collapse almost twice as severe as that of America’s Great Depression, and it also subverted prospects for a popularly responsive government and a constructive political opposition. The authors here present a boldly original analysis of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the birth of the Russian state. The keys to understanding these events, they argue, are the prescriptions of Western "transitologists," the International Monetary Fund, and advocates of economic "shock therapy." These prescriptions allowed the nomenklatura and the financial "oligarchs" to acquire Russia’s industrial and natural resources and to heavily influence the country’s political destiny. In this sweeping interpretation, the authors skillfully place the contemporary Russian experience in the context of history, political and social theory, and Russia’s place in the international system.
768 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
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January 14, 2025
First of all, the book was not written by the letters above, but by Peter Reddaway, professor of poli-sci and global affairs at GW University in DC; and Dmitri G. Vassiiev, senior assistant at Moscow's Russian Academy of Sciences. The complete mismatch of the featured cover to the actual book shows the fly-by-night nature of this site's technical staff; think of the horrors when AI is in their hands.
This magnum opus traces the rise of Soviet democracy and reform under Gorbachev in the glasnost-perestroika era, to its corruption and collapse under the one-two punch of an ambitious Yeltsin and his 500 Days team; and destructive Western advisors whose intent was to weaken and destabilize Russia in the name of "market reform." This political, social, economic, and moral collapse is detailed in 600+ fascinating pages where one stage of imposed "reform" devolves and worsens with each succeeding step, leading to impotent centralism, oligarchization, deconstruction of civil society, and Western dependency. This process the authors summed up as "market bolshevism": ramming through a revolution from above as ruthlessly as Stalin's Five-Year Plans (without Stalin's fear of world war as plausible excuse.)
The authors made a footnote (n. 44, p. 663) "that Western nonmonetarist forces - whether of the social-democratic or other type - never came forward with a serious program of economic reform. Western leftists simply did not understand the reasons for Soviet citizens' rejection of the old economic system." Firstly, it was not the average Soviet citizen who rejected the old system - street experience at the time proved this was untrue. It was the Soviet elites themselves who opposed and overthrew the Soviet order, hoping to cash in on reforms at varied levels of self-enrichment and corruption. Second, "Western leftists" were not in power positions, nor did the "New Russian" elite want to heed them anyway.
The book was published in 2001, as the Yeltsin era ended and Putin's barely begun. We have seen Putin turn to the solution that the authors said could be a future option: a Pinochet-style autocracy that strengthened the state, brought the oligarchs/mafiya to heel, and asserted Russian independence. The 1990s attempt to remake Russia in "our" image failed dismally; but instead of learning a hard lesson, the collective West has reacted in a hissy fit of outrage and lashed out in a new cold war against the "New Hitler" in Moscow. As of this typing, we stand on the verge of a real hot one.
In the authors' conclusion they assert that comprehensive "marketization" of the economy, society, and parts of the government gutted Russia as a viable market democracy. "This is likely to serve as a warning about the dangers of a bolshevik-style dismantling - in the name of free-market dogma - of democratically accountable regulation of the economy." (P. 641.) But the lessons are there for us, too. As of this writing, the US is about to implement market bolshevism at home, with America's own clown-king figurehead serving as sock-puppet for oligarch privatizers. In other words, buckle your seatbelts, tovarishchi: YOUR ride to the market-bolshevik dark side is about to begin. Happy 500 Days!
This magnum opus traces the rise of Soviet democracy and reform under Gorbachev in the glasnost-perestroika era, to its corruption and collapse under the one-two punch of an ambitious Yeltsin and his 500 Days team; and destructive Western advisors whose intent was to weaken and destabilize Russia in the name of "market reform." This political, social, economic, and moral collapse is detailed in 600+ fascinating pages where one stage of imposed "reform" devolves and worsens with each succeeding step, leading to impotent centralism, oligarchization, deconstruction of civil society, and Western dependency. This process the authors summed up as "market bolshevism": ramming through a revolution from above as ruthlessly as Stalin's Five-Year Plans (without Stalin's fear of world war as plausible excuse.)
The authors made a footnote (n. 44, p. 663) "that Western nonmonetarist forces - whether of the social-democratic or other type - never came forward with a serious program of economic reform. Western leftists simply did not understand the reasons for Soviet citizens' rejection of the old economic system." Firstly, it was not the average Soviet citizen who rejected the old system - street experience at the time proved this was untrue. It was the Soviet elites themselves who opposed and overthrew the Soviet order, hoping to cash in on reforms at varied levels of self-enrichment and corruption. Second, "Western leftists" were not in power positions, nor did the "New Russian" elite want to heed them anyway.
The book was published in 2001, as the Yeltsin era ended and Putin's barely begun. We have seen Putin turn to the solution that the authors said could be a future option: a Pinochet-style autocracy that strengthened the state, brought the oligarchs/mafiya to heel, and asserted Russian independence. The 1990s attempt to remake Russia in "our" image failed dismally; but instead of learning a hard lesson, the collective West has reacted in a hissy fit of outrage and lashed out in a new cold war against the "New Hitler" in Moscow. As of this typing, we stand on the verge of a real hot one.
In the authors' conclusion they assert that comprehensive "marketization" of the economy, society, and parts of the government gutted Russia as a viable market democracy. "This is likely to serve as a warning about the dangers of a bolshevik-style dismantling - in the name of free-market dogma - of democratically accountable regulation of the economy." (P. 641.) But the lessons are there for us, too. As of this writing, the US is about to implement market bolshevism at home, with America's own clown-king figurehead serving as sock-puppet for oligarch privatizers. In other words, buckle your seatbelts, tovarishchi: YOUR ride to the market-bolshevik dark side is about to begin. Happy 500 Days!
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