Conversations on Russia: Reform from Yeltsin to Putin by Padma Desai (review)

reviews 589 based on a single round of elections and are too limited to justify sweeping generalizations about Putin-era politics in chapter six. Overall the volume is better at explaining the reasons for institutional choice than the results. Nevertheless, it is an exemplary study of the former and intriguing throughout. Department of Politics Luke March Universityof Edinburgh Desai, Padma. Conversations on Russia: Reform from Yeltsin toPutin. Oxford University Press, New York, 2006. xiv 4383 pp. Notes. Index. ?26.00. Despite the fact that interviews with political actors date rapidly, they nonetheless provide a fertile source of perceptions about policies, personali ties and possibilities in a particular historical time frame. Padma Desai has admirably put together seventeen conversations and commentaries from 'reform maximalists', 'reform gradualists', followed by another 'five policy perspectives', and concluding with reflections from two historians about the years spanning 1999 to 2005.Whilst memory can be flawed and the past rewritten to suit the politician and his or her agenda, much detail here is illuminating. The reform maximalists interviewed are Boris El'tsin, Anatolii Chu bais, Egor Gaidar, Boris Nemtsov, Mikhail Kasianov and Strobe Talbot. The topics discussed include the entire reform process, the specifics of economic policy, the role of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), rela tionships among reformers, the Chechen war, intellectuals, public opinion, democratization and President Vladimir Putin's record. El'tsin stresses that there had been a crucial need for a 'kamikaze crew' to forge through painful reforms, even though he had known that such an approach would cost the team theirpolitical future.He describes how 'they had to work full throttle', adding that 'so did I, twenty hours a day, with four hours for sleep'. Nemtsov confesses that some reformers like himself had believed that if they could kill Communism, which was theirmain task, then 'we would live like theAmericans, maybe in sixmonths, perhaps nine months'. Gaidar volunteers that 'the decision to proceed with inefficient priva tization even with bad rules was correct'. Kasianov's contribution covers what accounted for declining economic growth, the importance of investment for Russia and the relevance of the weak dollar and stronger euro. The cluster of selected reform gradualists are Grigorii Iavlinskii, Sergei Rogov, Nodari Simonia and George Soros. Their criticisms of themaximal istsare harsh. Director of the Institute of theUSA and Canada, Rogov claims E'ltsin was 'hungry forpolitical power' and ready to do anything to become leader 'including dissolving the Soviet Union1. Iavlinskii views Gorbachev as the liberator and condemns 'the so-called reformers' as initiators of a 'Ther midor' but not of a genuine democratic transformation. Philanthropist Soros regrets the role that the IMF played, criticizes the conditions that theUS 590 seer, 86, 3, july 2008 leadership slapped on Russia, points out how the oligarchs differ from each other and should not be put 'in the same basket', but agrees thatPutin wishes to stamp out the oligarch's opposition to foreign investment and place Russia in the globalized economy. Five furtherpolicy perspectives come from Sergei Dubinin, Oleg Viugin, Boris Jordan, Anatoly Vishnevskii and Jack Matlock Jr. Former Chair of the Central Bank, Dubinin, focuses on questions of macroeconomics and concurs that differences occurred over policy between theCentral Bank as Treasury, as in all states.Matlock, US Ambassador to theUSSR from 1987 to 1991, provides some of the most sensible observations. He notes that whilst Russia under Putin may be regressing in terms of democracy, he findsodd the view that 'itwould be easy or automatic forRussia suddenly to become a demo cracy'. Democracy is both a relatively new political system and 'does not exist unblemished anywhere'. He views El'tsin as 'a master politician' and Putin as 'more calculating' with an understanding of Russia's interests. Martin Malia and Richard Pipes continue the important themes of com parative history.Malia views El'tsin as a 'craftierpolitician than Gorbach ev, not a craftier apparatchik' and considers that Putin's ends of a strong, dynamic and modern Russia preclude radical authoritarian means. Pipes argues that since empires cannot last, itwas a 'fluke' that theUSSR existed for so long. Democracy, however, must come from below and Pipes estimates that such pressures in Russia today are 'weak'. He...

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