Yegor Gaidar Interview: Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley
Page 3 of 9
So you are an economist, the wall comes down in Eastern Europe, communism in essence loses power, although it's still there -- how did you get thrust into government service?
Well, it was a moment of a very, very difficult political and economic situation. I was then a young head of probably the best Russian economic institution, which was called the Institute of Economic Policy of the Russian Academy of Sciences. We were able to create a team of young, market-oriented economists from the different institutions and from St. Petersburg. Well after the August coup, it was evident that the old system didn't function anymore.
This would be the coup against Gorbachev.
Yes, October '91. It was evident that the economy was in a shambles.
It was very difficult to understand what was do-able in this type of situation,
so the line of those willing to take that responsibility was very, very short.
It was a time when Yeltsin was having negotiations with the different
personalities with whom he proposed to head the government, and everybody
refused to do it. And I can very well understand the grounds on which they
refused. So from the beginning, he asked me and my colleagues to act as his
advisors, which was a much more natural role for an academic than to be an
actual government leader. And we were absolutely prepared for exactly this
role. But then it was evident that it's very nice to give advice, but how do
you implement it? So that's when we started to discuss the possibilities that
probably we would have to not only give advice but also implement it and take
responsibility for what we were doing.
You say that no one was in the line to take this job. Why was that? Because they had no ideas about what to do? Or were they afraid to do it? Or did they still believe in the old system?
Well, first of all because they were afraid to do it or had no ideas about what should be done.
It was evident that the time for nice solutions,
pleasant solutions, solutions for which you would be praised, was back in the
past. Now we had to deal with very, very difficult, unpleasant solutions. For
instance, just a few things that we had to do were to cut down military
expenditure five times -- do you think that's easy? We had to cut down
subsidies to agriculture a few times -- it's conflictual. We had to introduce a
high value-added tax -- that's conflictual. We had to regularize the prices,
which inevitably led to the realization that a lot of the savings of the
population were artificial savings with nothing behind them -- it's difficult.
We had to deal with the countryside -- which had grain reserves which should
last you until February -- without hard currency, without gold; and the
countryside was unable to pay for previous accumulated debt. How would one
manage that? So that was exactly the time that it was evident that even if you
would be able to find some solutions to these problems, they would not be the
popular solutions. We have seen the experience of our friends in Eastern Europe
who had incomparably easier tasks, and some of them have done it splendidly.
But I don't remember that any of them was praised very much for doing it. And
it was evident for us and for anybody else that even if you are successful, it
would not be the case that anybody would tell you -- "How nice," "Let us praise you," etc.
So you were in the situation of the parent giving the child castor oil for its health.
Yes, but having to do much more dangerous operations. And with a child who is able to kill his parents.
So what impelled you to say "I'll do it?" Was it your belief in the ideas that you were going to implement? Or was it a kind of a natural self-confidence that you had acquired from your childhood?
Well, of course it was a belief in the ideas. I was not absolutely
sure that we would succeed, but I was absolutely sure that there was no other
way. And I was absolutely sure that delay would be suicide for the country. And
if you do believe in it, you have to try, you have to do it. It's not a
personal matter, it's a matter of your country.
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