Yegor Gaidar Interview: Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley
Page 7 of 9
In the course of doing all of these things you're, in essence, creating your own opposition in the short term. But also in the back of your mind must be the idea that you're creating new classes of people who will be supporters of the system now and in the future.
Of course that was one of our crucial ideas. All the time we were trying to create a social basis for the reforms which would make them sustainable.
Let's help the audience understand that. That means that the system has now come apart, where orders came from the top and there was this here and that there. Now you're trying to create a class of people who are entrepreneurs, who would supply the food because they see that they would make a profit and they know that there's a market for it.
We feel, if you compare Russia '91 and Russia
'96, that is an enormous difference, because we have created this class. It's
not only a country of the very rich and the very poor. That is a very
simplified picture. What is important is that it is a country with an
increasing middle class, with an increasing part of the population experiencing the living standards of the middle class. When you are traveling, for instance,
to a middle-sized Russian city, say Magnitogorsk, and on Friday you see a long,
long line of not-very-expensive automobiles bringing Russian families to their
dachas 10 kms from Magnitogorsk, you see exactly this emerging Russian middle
class. And with all of these problems, it's evident that this middle class is
being developed, that it is connected to the market economy. And exactly this
middle class, from my point of view, played a crucial role in Yeltsin's victory
in the '96 presidential elections.
In your short monograph describing your plan and its implementation, you describe almost with wonder the way constituents would change. There's some reference, I think, to military suppliers who, over the time of your involvement in policy, changed their view of the world and began to think, "Well, how will we sell our product?" That must have been quite satisfying.
It was satisfying. Also I have seen different examples. I have seen a lot of representatives of the previous elites, business elites, absolutely amenable to adapting to the new realities. And there are sad stories among them, for their business enterprises, etc., but also I have seen the success stories.
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