Rumors of Yeltsin?€™s Revival Much Exaggerated

Radio Liberty recently posed an intriguing question: “Will former President Boris Yeltsin’s old team return to politics?” It came during a program discussing the stormy public reaction to a blog written by Tatyana Yumasheva (better known by the surname Dychenko), who was not only Yeltsin’s daughter and the wife of the head of his administration but also a high-ranking member of Yeltsin’s team.

After having disappeared from public view since Vladimir Putin became president in 2000, Yumasheva unexpectedly entered the public scene in December when she published a blog attempting to put a positive spin on the Yeltsin years. Yumasheva’s reappearance was followed by the Dec. 16 death of former acting Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar — whom Yeltsin trusted enough to head Russia’s first independent government. Shortly after Gaidar was laid to rest, a personality cult around him was born. Journalists now hail him as a great reformer, and his former colleagues want to erect a monument to Gaidar, name a street in his honor and educate Russians about Gaidar’s eminent role in post-Soviet Russian history.

What is behind these events? Gaidar’s friends and supporters argue that Russia was on the verge of starvation and lapsing into civil war in late 1991. Nobody had the courage to take charge of the economy. There was no alternative to Gaidar’s reforms, and they saved the country from collapse.

I remember that the exact same postulates were heard in 1992, when Gaidar and his team had just begun their reforms. You have to agree that today, almost 20 years later, when Russia survives on the industrial potential of the Soviet Union, when the country’s population has been declining rapidly and the financial crisis has demonstrated the global fiasco of neoliberal economics, there is something sect-like in that type of blind belief in a bygone dogma. It is as if Gaidar’s self-proclaimed disciples had created a fictitious world for themselves. As I see it, that is the reaction of people who realize that they have committed wrongs and are searching for a way to justify their actions — at least in their own eyes.

Two figures with a lot of political clout — Mayor Yury Luzhkov and his predecessor and a member of the first wave of democrats Gavriil Popov — apparently anticipated the threat from a revival of Yeltsinism. It would otherwise be difficult to explain why they published an article in Moskovsky Komsomolets casting doubt on Gaidar’s legacy even before the customary 40 days of mourning had elapsed. In particular, the authors name a whole list of people who had their own vision of reform in 1991 and 1992 and who were ready and willing to head the government had they been given the opportunity.

Anatoly Chubais, Yeltsin’s former privatization chief, called the article “dirty, jaundiced and vicious slander.” Hearing that argument, I rejoiced that this is not the Yeltsin era when in 1993 the government’s tanks fired on those who disagreed with the economic views of the young reformers.

In any event, there is no reason to fear a revival of Yeltsinism in the near future if for no other reason than the fact that modernization of the economy requires a greater regulatory role by the government and protectionist measures on behalf of domestic industry and agriculture. In short, it entails everything that was an anathema to Yeltsin’s young reformers. According to that logic, we are more likely to see a purge of pro-Yeltsin reformers than a resurgence.

Alexei Pankin is editor of WAN-IFRA-GIPP Magazine for publishing business professionals.