Days of Defeat and Victory by Yegor Gaidar

Author:Yegor Gaidar [Gaidar, Yegor]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, General, Political Science, Comparative Politics, International Relations
ISBN: 9780295995359
Google: MxqNrgEACAAJ
Amazon: B010TYY0NO
Barnesnoble: B010TYY0NO
Goodreads: 29424047
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Published: 2015-01-15T08:01:11+00:00

Chapter 9

Dismissal

The Congress of People’s Deputies

The report of the government

The opposition offers a compromise

The vote

The President fires a dud

Viktor Chernomyrdin

Friendship or politics?

By the end of November it was quite clear to me that at the next Congress of People’s Deputies there would be a change of prime minister. Of course, from time to time messengers from the opposition and the so-called centrists showed up, bearing promises of support were I to bring one of their people into the government and agree to the dismissal of some of mine.

They were particularly vociferous in demanding the heads of Aleksandr Shokhin, deputy prime minister for foreign trade relations with the CIS, Pyotr Aven, the minister of foreign trade, and Andrei Nechaev, the minister of economics. They proposed alternative candidates for these posts. Chubais they wouldn’t touch, apparently realizing how senseless it was to even broach the subject of his possible dismissal. Especially active were Arkady Volsky and his colleagues in the Civic Union, who in exchange for the above, promised the support of the industrial managers’ lobby widely represented in the congress.1 Both privately and publicly, I responded frankly that such a deal was out of the question.

After some sober thought, I concluded that I could of course try to hang on as acting prime minister after the legislative session, in an even weaker position than before, with an unfriendly Central Bank and a hostile Supreme Soviet, but that it would be more helpful to our cause to get the congress to confirm a prime minister with whom we might regroup forces, and continue the work already begun. I suggested that the President choose the latter option. I recommended Academician Yury A. Ryzhkov, the Russian ambassador to France, as a candidate.

The president answered, “I’ll think about it. And we’ll see how the congress goes. . . .”

The congress opened with a mighty overture—a speech by Ruslan Khasbulatov, largely based on the text of a report prepared by the economics section of the Academy of Sciences and the Reform Foundation. Whole blocks of quotations were lifted from the report. He gave an undeniably powerful populist performance, and drew a simple and understandable picture for the people’s deputies: A struggle was being waged in Russia, a struggle between two paths of development. One of these was monetarist, American, and vile, and it was down this path that the current government was trying to drag the country; the other was socially oriented, Swedish, dear to the hearts of the majority of people, Russia’s salvation.

The congress was spellbound. How simple and remarkable it all was! Deputies in the hall traded proud and meaningful glances; it turned out that they were not really industry lobbyists trying to squeeze totally unsecured money out of the treasury, not demagogues handing out unfulfillable promises to the voters, not at all. They were staunch warriors in the fight for good socialism, Swedish-model socialism, in Russia!

I usually wake up early, but the following day a phone call from the President woke me earlier than usual.

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