Grigory Alexeyevich Yavlinsky
Encyclopedia
Grigory Alexeyevich Yavlinsky is a Russia
n economist and politician of Ukrainian
origin. He is best known as the author of the 500 Days Programme, a plan for the transition of the USSR to a free-market economy, and for his leadership of the liberal Yabloko
party. He ran twice for Russia's presidency – in 1996, against Boris Yeltsin
, finishing fourth with 7.3% of the vote; and in 2000, against Vladimir Putin
, finishing third with 5.8%. He did not run in 2004 or 2008, declaring that there were no real elections in Russia.
. His father Alexei was an officer and his mother Vera taught chemistry at an institute. Both his parents are buried in Lviv
, and his brother Mikhail lives there.
In 1967 and 1968, he was the champion of Ukraine
in junior boxing. He decided to become an economist during his school years. From 1967 to 1976, he studied at the Plekhanov Institute of the National Economy in Moscow as a labor economist and took a post-graduate course there. A kandidat
of economics (PhD), he worked in the coal sector.
From 1984, he held a management position at the Labor Ministry and then the Council of Ministers of the USSR. In this capacity, he had to join Communist Party of the Soviet Union
, of which he was a member in 1985–1991. He was head of the Joint Economic Department of the Government of the USSR. In 1989, he was made department head of Academician Leonid Abalkin
's State Commission for Economic Reforms.
was established when in 1990 he wrote "500 Days
" – a program for the Soviet Union promising rapid transition from centrally planned economy to a free market in less than 2 years. To implement the program, Yavlinsky was appointed Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR and Deputy Chairman of the State Commission for Economic Reform. In October 1990, when it became clear that his program was not going to be implemented, he resigned from the government. He then established his own think tank, EPICenter, which brought together many members of his 500 Days team who were to become his future associates in Yabloko (Sergei Ivanenko, Aleksei Melnikov, Aleksei Mikhailov et al.)
In the summer of 1991, during his stay in Harvard, he co-authored a new reform program, jointly with Graham Allison, that offered a platform for Gorbachev's negotiations with the "G-7" over financial aid in support of transition to the market. After the defeat of the hardline August 1991 coup against Gorbachev and Yeltsin, he was appointed Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Management of National Economy that acted in place of Soviet government. In this role he unsuccessfully tried to negotiate an economic union among the remaining Soviet republics. The agreement was signed by representatives of ten republics in Alma-Ata on 18 October 1991. Yet these efforts were overturned by Yeltsin's unilateral proclamation of radical market reforms in Russia on 28 October 1991 and the dissolution of the USSR in December of that year.
With the launching of the 'shock therapy
' reforms by Yeltsin and Gaidar
in January 1992, Yavlinsky became an outspoken critic of these policies, emphasizing differences between his and Gaidar's reforms program (such as the sequencing of privatization
vs. liberalization of prices and the applicability of his program to the entire Soviet Union).
In 1992, Yavlinsky served as advisor to Boris Nemtsov
who at the time was Governor of the Nizhny Novgorod
Region. Yavlinsky developed a regional economic reform program for him. Later, however, their paths diverged, as Nemtsov sided with Yeltsin's government on most issues, eventually becoming deputy prime minister and one of the founders and leaders of the Union of Right Forces
, while Yavlinsky became the leader of liberal opposition to Yeltsin).
. In September–October 1993, he joined a group of senior politicians who tried to mediate between Yeltsin and the parliament and was on a short list of compromise candidates for the post of the Prime Minister. However, with the outbreak of hostilities on the streets of Moscow
on 3 October he unequivocally called upon Yeltsin to use force against violent supporters of the parliament. (He was later blamed for having abandoned neutrality in this situation.)
When Yeltsin set the date for the elections to the new parliament
and a constitutional referendum for 12 December 1993
, Yavlinsky had to cobble together an electoral bloc in haste, as he had no party of his own, and had to recruit existing parties as co-founders. His bloc was co-founded by three of them, Republican Party of the Russian Federation
, Social Democratic Party of Russia
and Christian Democratic Party of Russia
, all three tilting on most issues toward the Yeltsin camp. However, they were soon marginalized within his bloc and RPRF was ousted from it 1994.
The top three names on the slate – Yavlinsky, Yury Boldyrev (former State Comptroller and a disaffected democrat) and Vladimir Lukin
(at the time Russia's ambassador to the US) – gave the bloc its initial name, "Yavlinsky-Boldyrev-Lukin", abbreviated as YaBLoko
. The bloc's leadership was divided over Yeltsin's constitutional project, but Yavlinsky himself was openly critical of it. With no prior electoral experience, YaBLoko succeeded in winning 7.9% of the vote and forming the fifth largest faction in the Duma. After Boldyrev clashed with Yavlinsky over the bill on production-sharing agreements and left the bloc in 1995, the name was retained but now reinterpreted as "Yavlinsky Bloc". In 1995, the Yabloko
caucus in the Duma set up its own political association that in 2001 was reincorporated as a political party.
Among the features of the new party that would distinguish it from other liberal parties was its critique of Yeltsin's policies, from economic "shock therapy
" and the handling of the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis to Chechnya War and Russia's relations with the West. Yavlinsky established himself as a permanent leader of "democratic opposition". In this capacity, he was a principled opponent of Gaidar
's Russia's Choice and its successors in the parliament, such as the Union of Right Forces
. In their turn, they charged him with being too inflexible and blamed his personality for a failure to merge with other democrats in order to mount a concentrated electoral challenge to the hardline forces. Others, however, admitted to philosophical differences between Yavlinsky's unspoken social democratic bent and the neoliberal orientation of his democratic opponents.
In September 1998, after Russia's 1998 financial crash brought down Sergei Kirienko government, Yavlinsky proposed the candidacy of Yevgeny Primakov
who was elected Prime Minister in spite of resistance from Yeltsin, his family and entourage. This helped resolve the political stalemate and many credit Primakov with rescuing the economy from chaos and with the start of the recovery of the industrial production that continued under Vladimir Putin
. However, Yavlinsky declined Primakov's offer to join his Communist-dominated government as deputy premier for social policies and soon joined the ranks of his critics on the liberal side.
In May 1999, as Yeltsin regained power and was preparing to dismiss Primakov, Yavlinsky joined forces with the Communist Party in an attempt to impeach Yeltsin. Of the four items of impeachment, the article that got the most support from both parties was the one charging Yeltsin with abuse of power in connection with war in Chechnya
. However, about a third of Yabloko did not vote in support of the impeachment, which failed as a result.
In 1996 and 2000, Yavlinsky ran for President with endorsement from his party and other organizations. In 1996, he came in fourth and received 7.3% of the vote. In the 2000 presidential elections
, he finished third and received 5.8% of the vote. In both cases, he did not subsequently offer his support to either Yeltsin or Putin or their Communist opponent in both elections, Gennady Zyuganov
.
Yavlinsky does not conceal his lukewarm view of the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 that occurred while he was negotiating an economic treaty among the republics. However, he never advocated a restoration of Soviet Union or a revision of post-Soviet borders. Some of the Ukrainian nationalists' claims that he "does not consider Ukraine
and Belarus
nations separate from Russia, nor does he consider Ukrainian
and Belarusian
languages separate from Russian" and that "he has argued (in 1996) both states should become a part of the Russian Federation" are not substantiated by credible evidence.
Yavlinsky was at times critical of the US policies toward Russia, particularly under the Clinton administration. Some of the most trenchant of these criticisms are contained in his lecture at the Nobel Institute, delivered in May 2000.
. In 2002, he took part in the unsuccessful negotiations during the Moscow theater hostage crisis
and was praised by President Vladimir Putin
for his role in the standoff. His party also campaigned against the imports of radioactive waste
into Russia, thus building a crucial alliance with environmental NGOs, as well as with human rights organizations, labor unions, women associations, and ethnic minority groups. He was also an uncompromising critic of the Putin government's reforms of the housing and utilities sector and of the energy sector. A number of times, the Yabloko faction in the Duma initiated petitioning campaigns for the resignation of the government. At that time, he developed close relations with Mikhail Khodorkovsky
, an oligarch
who positioned himself as an autonomous economic and political player vis-a-vis the Kremlin. A number of Khodorkovsky's associates became Duma members on the Yabloko slate (as well as through the Communist Party).
Yavlinsky had difficult relations with the authorities both under Yeltsin and under Putin (even though he was at times criticized by more radical groups for being a "house oppositionist"). While supporting many of the government's tax and budgetary reforms and aligning himself on many issues with Putin's reform czar Alexei Kudrin
, as well as supporting Putin's early foreign policies of developing closer ties to the United States, he remained critical of domestic policies, particularly of the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky
in the fall of 2003. He became even more outspoken about what many saw as an assault on democratic freedoms in Russia. In distinction from the new oppositionists, such as Boris Nemtsov
, Garry Kasparov
et al., he insisted that Putin's policies were to be seen as a direct continuation of Yeltsin's. Nonetheless, he was repeatedly mentioned in media rumors as a possible candidate for Prime Minister, both under Yeltsin and Putin.
In the 2003 elections to the Duma
, Yabloko failed to cross the 5% threshold of Duma representation. Both vote-rigging and Yabloko's declining support may have been the primary factor. Yavlinsky later recalled that Putin telephoned him early on election night to congratulate him, apparently believing – or pretending to believe – that Yabloko had succeeded in gaining representation.
Yavlinsky refused to run for president in 2004
, claiming that Putin had rigged elections to the point of making them meaningless.
Yavlinsky remains a prominent critic of Putin and of Russia's leading United Russia
Party. In a 12 January 2004 interview, he is quoted as saying:
After Yabloko again failed to secure representation in the Russian legislative election, 2007
, there was some possibility of Yavlinsky running again for presidency in 2008
. However, most Yabloko members and Yavlinsky himself supported the long-shot and largely symbolic candidacy of emigré dissident Vladimir Bukovsky
who in the end failed to clear legal obstacles to his registration.
Yavlinsky's leadership of Yabloko occasionally came under attacks from internal opponents, who eventually were defeated and not infrequently had to leave the party. The most prominent of them included Yury Boldyrev, YaBLoko's vice-leader and member of the upper house, in 1995; Vyacheslav Igrunov, a left-wing intellectual and a campaign manager, who quit over the restructuring of the organization in 2003; and some of the younger members, such as Ilya Yashin
and Maksim Reznik, who advocated for a closer alliance with other opposition groups (Yashin is no longer a Yabloko member, while Reznik stayed as a leader of its St. Petersburg branch).
On 22 June 2008, Yavlinsky stepped down as party leader at Yabloko's 15th congress, proposing in his place the candidacy of Moscow City Duma deputy Sergey Mitrokhin
who was elected the new party chairman. Yavlinsky remains a member of Yabloko's Political Committee (elected there with the largest number of votes) and a regular spokesman for the party, particularly in local election campaigns. Outside of politics, he is a professor of Moscow's Higher School of Economics. He is also a member of the Trilateral Commission
.
A recent interview revealed that during the turbulent times of Russia's politics in the 90s Yavlinsky's opponents had his 23 year old piano-playing son kidnapped, and his fingers cut off and mailed to him. He declined to reveal who he thinks is behind the attack saying he "was receiving corresponding letters" prior to the incident.
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n economist and politician of Ukrainian
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...
origin. He is best known as the author of the 500 Days Programme, a plan for the transition of the USSR to a free-market economy, and for his leadership of the liberal Yabloko
Yabloko
The Russian United Democratic Party "Yabloko" The Russian United Democratic Party "Yabloko" The Russian United Democratic Party "Yabloko" (Russian: Росси́йская объединённая демократи́ческая па́ртия «Я́блоко» Rossiyskaya obyedinyonnaya demokraticheskaya partiya "Yabloko"; is a Russian social...
party. He ran twice for Russia's presidency – in 1996, against Boris Yeltsin
Boris Yeltsin
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was the first President of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999.Originally a supporter of Mikhail Gorbachev, Yeltsin emerged under the perestroika reforms as one of Gorbachev's most powerful political opponents. On 29 May 1990 he was elected the chairman of...
, finishing fourth with 7.3% of the vote; and in 2000, against Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin served as the second President of the Russian Federation and is the current Prime Minister of Russia, as well as chairman of United Russia and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Russia and Belarus. He became acting President on 31 December 1999, when...
, finishing third with 5.8%. He did not run in 2004 or 2008, declaring that there were no real elections in Russia.
Biography
Yavlinsky was born and grew up in LvivLviv
Lviv is a city in western Ukraine. The city is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of today's Ukraine and historically has also been a major Polish and Jewish cultural center, as Poles and Jews were the two main ethnicities of the city until the outbreak of World War II and the following...
. His father Alexei was an officer and his mother Vera taught chemistry at an institute. Both his parents are buried in Lviv
Lviv
Lviv is a city in western Ukraine. The city is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of today's Ukraine and historically has also been a major Polish and Jewish cultural center, as Poles and Jews were the two main ethnicities of the city until the outbreak of World War II and the following...
, and his brother Mikhail lives there.
In 1967 and 1968, he was the champion of Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
in junior boxing. He decided to become an economist during his school years. From 1967 to 1976, he studied at the Plekhanov Institute of the National Economy in Moscow as a labor economist and took a post-graduate course there. A kandidat
Kandidat
The Candidate of Sciences degree is a first post-graduate scientific degree in some former Eastern Bloc countries, such as Russia and Ukraine, which is awarded for original research that constitutes a significant contribution to a scientific field. The degree was first introduced in the USSR on...
of economics (PhD), he worked in the coal sector.
From 1984, he held a management position at the Labor Ministry and then the Council of Ministers of the USSR. In this capacity, he had to join Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
, of which he was a member in 1985–1991. He was head of the Joint Economic Department of the Government of the USSR. In 1989, he was made department head of Academician Leonid Abalkin
Leonid Abalkin
Leonid Ivanovich Abalkin was a Russian economist. He was born in Moscow and became director of the Institute of Economics of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1986. A member of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR with special responsibility for economic affairs...
's State Commission for Economic Reforms.
Post-Soviet economic reforms
Yavlinsky's commitment to a market economyMarket economy
A market economy is an economy in which the prices of goods and services are determined in a free price system. This is often contrasted with a state-directed or planned economy. Market economies can range from hypothetically pure laissez-faire variants to an assortment of real-world mixed...
was established when in 1990 he wrote "500 Days
500 Days
500 Days Program was an ambitious program to overcome the economic crisis in the Soviet Union by means of transition into market economy.The program was proposed by Grigory Yavlinsky and further developed by a work group under the direction of Stanislav Shatalin...
" – a program for the Soviet Union promising rapid transition from centrally planned economy to a free market in less than 2 years. To implement the program, Yavlinsky was appointed Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR and Deputy Chairman of the State Commission for Economic Reform. In October 1990, when it became clear that his program was not going to be implemented, he resigned from the government. He then established his own think tank, EPICenter, which brought together many members of his 500 Days team who were to become his future associates in Yabloko (Sergei Ivanenko, Aleksei Melnikov, Aleksei Mikhailov et al.)
In the summer of 1991, during his stay in Harvard, he co-authored a new reform program, jointly with Graham Allison, that offered a platform for Gorbachev's negotiations with the "G-7" over financial aid in support of transition to the market. After the defeat of the hardline August 1991 coup against Gorbachev and Yeltsin, he was appointed Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Management of National Economy that acted in place of Soviet government. In this role he unsuccessfully tried to negotiate an economic union among the remaining Soviet republics. The agreement was signed by representatives of ten republics in Alma-Ata on 18 October 1991. Yet these efforts were overturned by Yeltsin's unilateral proclamation of radical market reforms in Russia on 28 October 1991 and the dissolution of the USSR in December of that year.
With the launching of the 'shock therapy
Shock therapy (economics)
In economics, shock therapy refers to the sudden release of price and currency controls, withdrawal of state subsidies, and immediate trade liberalization within a country, usually also including large scale privatization of previously public owned assets....
' reforms by Yeltsin and Gaidar
Gaidar
Gaidar is a name in Russian, Azerbaijani and Arabic.*Russian surname , a pseudonym of Arkady Gaidar which was taken as a last name by his descendants:...
in January 1992, Yavlinsky became an outspoken critic of these policies, emphasizing differences between his and Gaidar's reforms program (such as the sequencing of privatization
Privatization
Privatization is the incidence or process of transferring ownership of a business, enterprise, agency or public service from the public sector to the private sector or to private non-profit organizations...
vs. liberalization of prices and the applicability of his program to the entire Soviet Union).
In 1992, Yavlinsky served as advisor to Boris Nemtsov
Boris Nemtsov
Boris Efimovich Nemtsov is a Russian politician who was Deputy Prime Minister of Russia from 1997 to 1998. He was a co-founder of the Russian political party Union of Right Forces and is an outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin.-Early life:...
who at the time was Governor of the Nizhny Novgorod
Nizhny Novgorod
Nizhny Novgorod , colloquially shortened to Nizhny, is, with the population of 1,250,615, the fifth largest city in Russia, ranking after Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, and Yekaterinburg...
Region. Yavlinsky developed a regional economic reform program for him. Later, however, their paths diverged, as Nemtsov sided with Yeltsin's government on most issues, eventually becoming deputy prime minister and one of the founders and leaders of the Union of Right Forces
Union of Right Forces
The Union of Right Forces, or SPS , was a Russian democratic opposition party associated with free market reforms, privatization, and the legacy of the 'Young Reformers' of the 1990s: Anatoly Chubais, Boris Nemtsov, and Yegor Gaidar. Nikita Belykh was the last party's leader...
, while Yavlinsky became the leader of liberal opposition to Yeltsin).
During Yeltsin's presidency
In 1993, as conflict between Yeltsin and the parliament over shock therapy exacerbated, Yavlinsky had high ratings in the polls as a potential candidate for Russia's presidency, who had the image of an independent, centrist politician, untainted by corruption. He built close relations with many disaffected democrats and NGOs, as well as with Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov and rising financial and media magnate Vladimir GusinskyVladimir Gusinsky
Vladimir Aleksandrovich Gusinsky is a Russian media baron, is known as the founder of Media-Most holding that included Most Bank, the NTV channel, the newspaper Segodnya and magazines.-Life and career:Gusinsky was born in Moscow....
. In September–October 1993, he joined a group of senior politicians who tried to mediate between Yeltsin and the parliament and was on a short list of compromise candidates for the post of the Prime Minister. However, with the outbreak of hostilities on the streets of Moscow
Russian constitutional crisis of 1993
The constitutional crisis of 1993 was a political stand-off between the Russian president and the Russian parliament that was resolved by using military force. The relations between the president and the parliament had been deteriorating for a while...
on 3 October he unequivocally called upon Yeltsin to use force against violent supporters of the parliament. (He was later blamed for having abandoned neutrality in this situation.)
When Yeltsin set the date for the elections to the new parliament
Russian legislative election, 1993
Legislative elections were held in the Russian Federation on 12 December 1993. At stake were the 450 seats in the State Duma , the lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia .-Rules:...
and a constitutional referendum for 12 December 1993
Russian constitutional referendum, 1993
A referendum was held in Russia on 12 December, 1993. It was initiated by President Boris Yeltsin after the fall of the Supreme Soviet. This was in a direct violation of the corresponding law № 241-1 «On the referendums of the Russian SFSR»...
, Yavlinsky had to cobble together an electoral bloc in haste, as he had no party of his own, and had to recruit existing parties as co-founders. His bloc was co-founded by three of them, Republican Party of the Russian Federation
Republican Party of the Russian Federation
The Republican Party of the Russian Federation is a pro-reform and pro-democracy political party in the RSFSR and later in the Russian Federation. Nowadays, the party still exists . It is led by Vladimir Ryzhkov and opposes the Putin regime...
, Social Democratic Party of Russia
Social Democratic Party of Russia
The Social Democratic Party of Russia was a political party founded in Russia by Mikhail Gorbachev on November 26, 2001. First name of party is: Social Democratic Party of Russia . It was a coalition of several social democratic parties, had approximately 12,000 members, but had no seats in the...
and Christian Democratic Party of Russia
Christian Democratic Party of Russia
The Christian Democratic Party of Russia is a Christian Democratic political party in the Russian Federation. It was founded in May 1990.It maintains fraternal relations with Christian Democratic parties in Europe and around the world....
, all three tilting on most issues toward the Yeltsin camp. However, they were soon marginalized within his bloc and RPRF was ousted from it 1994.
The top three names on the slate – Yavlinsky, Yury Boldyrev (former State Comptroller and a disaffected democrat) and Vladimir Lukin
Vladimir Lukin
Vladimir Petrovich Lukin is Russian liberal political activist currently serving as the Human Rights Commissioner of Russia...
(at the time Russia's ambassador to the US) – gave the bloc its initial name, "Yavlinsky-Boldyrev-Lukin", abbreviated as YaBLoko
Yabloko
The Russian United Democratic Party "Yabloko" The Russian United Democratic Party "Yabloko" The Russian United Democratic Party "Yabloko" (Russian: Росси́йская объединённая демократи́ческая па́ртия «Я́блоко» Rossiyskaya obyedinyonnaya demokraticheskaya partiya "Yabloko"; is a Russian social...
. The bloc's leadership was divided over Yeltsin's constitutional project, but Yavlinsky himself was openly critical of it. With no prior electoral experience, YaBLoko succeeded in winning 7.9% of the vote and forming the fifth largest faction in the Duma. After Boldyrev clashed with Yavlinsky over the bill on production-sharing agreements and left the bloc in 1995, the name was retained but now reinterpreted as "Yavlinsky Bloc". In 1995, the Yabloko
Yabloko
The Russian United Democratic Party "Yabloko" The Russian United Democratic Party "Yabloko" The Russian United Democratic Party "Yabloko" (Russian: Росси́йская объединённая демократи́ческая па́ртия «Я́блоко» Rossiyskaya obyedinyonnaya demokraticheskaya partiya "Yabloko"; is a Russian social...
caucus in the Duma set up its own political association that in 2001 was reincorporated as a political party.
Among the features of the new party that would distinguish it from other liberal parties was its critique of Yeltsin's policies, from economic "shock therapy
Shock therapy (economics)
In economics, shock therapy refers to the sudden release of price and currency controls, withdrawal of state subsidies, and immediate trade liberalization within a country, usually also including large scale privatization of previously public owned assets....
" and the handling of the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis to Chechnya War and Russia's relations with the West. Yavlinsky established himself as a permanent leader of "democratic opposition". In this capacity, he was a principled opponent of Gaidar
Gaidar
Gaidar is a name in Russian, Azerbaijani and Arabic.*Russian surname , a pseudonym of Arkady Gaidar which was taken as a last name by his descendants:...
's Russia's Choice and its successors in the parliament, such as the Union of Right Forces
Union of Right Forces
The Union of Right Forces, or SPS , was a Russian democratic opposition party associated with free market reforms, privatization, and the legacy of the 'Young Reformers' of the 1990s: Anatoly Chubais, Boris Nemtsov, and Yegor Gaidar. Nikita Belykh was the last party's leader...
. In their turn, they charged him with being too inflexible and blamed his personality for a failure to merge with other democrats in order to mount a concentrated electoral challenge to the hardline forces. Others, however, admitted to philosophical differences between Yavlinsky's unspoken social democratic bent and the neoliberal orientation of his democratic opponents.
In September 1998, after Russia's 1998 financial crash brought down Sergei Kirienko government, Yavlinsky proposed the candidacy of Yevgeny Primakov
Yevgeny Primakov
Yevgeny Maksimovich Primakov is a Russian politician and diplomat. During his long career, he served as the Russian Foreign Minister, Prime Minister of Russia, Speaker of the Soviet of the Union of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, and chief of intelligence service...
who was elected Prime Minister in spite of resistance from Yeltsin, his family and entourage. This helped resolve the political stalemate and many credit Primakov with rescuing the economy from chaos and with the start of the recovery of the industrial production that continued under Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin served as the second President of the Russian Federation and is the current Prime Minister of Russia, as well as chairman of United Russia and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Russia and Belarus. He became acting President on 31 December 1999, when...
. However, Yavlinsky declined Primakov's offer to join his Communist-dominated government as deputy premier for social policies and soon joined the ranks of his critics on the liberal side.
In May 1999, as Yeltsin regained power and was preparing to dismiss Primakov, Yavlinsky joined forces with the Communist Party in an attempt to impeach Yeltsin. Of the four items of impeachment, the article that got the most support from both parties was the one charging Yeltsin with abuse of power in connection with war in Chechnya
Second Chechen War
The Second Chechen War, in a later phase better known as the War in the North Caucasus, was launched by the Russian Federation starting 26 August 1999, in response to the Invasion of Dagestan by the Islamic International Peacekeeping Brigade ....
. However, about a third of Yabloko did not vote in support of the impeachment, which failed as a result.
In 1996 and 2000, Yavlinsky ran for President with endorsement from his party and other organizations. In 1996, he came in fourth and received 7.3% of the vote. In the 2000 presidential elections
Russian presidential election, 2000
Russian presidential elections were held on 26 March 2000. Incumbent Prime Minister, and acting President Vladimir Putin, who had succeeded Boris Yeltsin on his resignation December 31, 1999, was seeking a four-year term in his own right and won the elections in the first round. Polling stations...
, he finished third and received 5.8% of the vote. In both cases, he did not subsequently offer his support to either Yeltsin or Putin or their Communist opponent in both elections, Gennady Zyuganov
Gennady Zyuganov
Gennady Andreyevich Zyuganov is a Russian politician, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation , Chairman of the Union of Communist Parties - Communist Party of the Soviet Union , deputy of the State Duma , and a member of Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe...
.
Yavlinsky does not conceal his lukewarm view of the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 that occurred while he was negotiating an economic treaty among the republics. However, he never advocated a restoration of Soviet Union or a revision of post-Soviet borders. Some of the Ukrainian nationalists' claims that he "does not consider Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
and Belarus
Belarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
nations separate from Russia, nor does he consider Ukrainian
Ukrainian language
Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....
and Belarusian
Belarusian language
The Belarusian language , sometimes referred to as White Russian or White Ruthenian, is the language of the Belarusian people...
languages separate from Russian" and that "he has argued (in 1996) both states should become a part of the Russian Federation" are not substantiated by credible evidence.
Yavlinsky was at times critical of the US policies toward Russia, particularly under the Clinton administration. Some of the most trenchant of these criticisms are contained in his lecture at the Nobel Institute, delivered in May 2000.
During Putin's presidency
Under the Putin presidency, Yavlinsky remained an active opponent of military solution to the problems in ChechnyaChechnya
The Chechen Republic , commonly referred to as Chechnya , also spelled Chechnia or Chechenia, sometimes referred to as Ichkeria , is a federal subject of Russia . It is located in the southeastern part of Europe in the Northern Caucasus mountains. The capital of the republic is the city of Grozny...
. In 2002, he took part in the unsuccessful negotiations during the Moscow theater hostage crisis
Moscow theater hostage crisis
The Moscow theater hostage crisis, also known as the 2002 Nord-Ost siege, was the seizure of the crowded Dubrovka Theater on 23 October 2002 by some 40 to 50 armed Chechens who claimed allegiance to the Islamist militant separatist movement in Chechnya. They took 850 hostages and demanded the...
and was praised by President Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin served as the second President of the Russian Federation and is the current Prime Minister of Russia, as well as chairman of United Russia and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Russia and Belarus. He became acting President on 31 December 1999, when...
for his role in the standoff. His party also campaigned against the imports of radioactive waste
Radioactive waste
Radioactive wastes are wastes that contain radioactive material. Radioactive wastes are usually by-products of nuclear power generation and other applications of nuclear fission or nuclear technology, such as research and medicine...
into Russia, thus building a crucial alliance with environmental NGOs, as well as with human rights organizations, labor unions, women associations, and ethnic minority groups. He was also an uncompromising critic of the Putin government's reforms of the housing and utilities sector and of the energy sector. A number of times, the Yabloko faction in the Duma initiated petitioning campaigns for the resignation of the government. At that time, he developed close relations with Mikhail Khodorkovsky
Mikhail Khodorkovsky
Mikhail Borisovich Khodorkovsky is a Russian prisoner, considered by some - such as Amnesty International - to have been imprisoned for political reasons, jailed until 2016 and a former Russian oligarch and businessman...
, an oligarch
Business oligarch
Business oligarch is a near-synonym of the term "business magnate", borrowed by the English speaking and western media from post-Soviet parlance to describe the huge, fast-acquired wealth of some businessmen of the former Soviet republics during the privatization in Russia and other post-Soviet...
who positioned himself as an autonomous economic and political player vis-a-vis the Kremlin. A number of Khodorkovsky's associates became Duma members on the Yabloko slate (as well as through the Communist Party).
Yavlinsky had difficult relations with the authorities both under Yeltsin and under Putin (even though he was at times criticized by more radical groups for being a "house oppositionist"). While supporting many of the government's tax and budgetary reforms and aligning himself on many issues with Putin's reform czar Alexei Kudrin
Alexei Kudrin
Alexei Leonidovich Kudrin was the Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister of Russia from 18 May 2000 to 26 September 2011. After graduating with degrees in finance and economics, Kudrin worked in the administration of Saint Petersburg's liberal Mayor Anatoly Sobchak. In 1996 he started...
, as well as supporting Putin's early foreign policies of developing closer ties to the United States, he remained critical of domestic policies, particularly of the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky
Mikhail Khodorkovsky
Mikhail Borisovich Khodorkovsky is a Russian prisoner, considered by some - such as Amnesty International - to have been imprisoned for political reasons, jailed until 2016 and a former Russian oligarch and businessman...
in the fall of 2003. He became even more outspoken about what many saw as an assault on democratic freedoms in Russia. In distinction from the new oppositionists, such as Boris Nemtsov
Boris Nemtsov
Boris Efimovich Nemtsov is a Russian politician who was Deputy Prime Minister of Russia from 1997 to 1998. He was a co-founder of the Russian political party Union of Right Forces and is an outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin.-Early life:...
, Garry Kasparov
Garry Kasparov
Garry Kimovich Kasparov is a Russian chess grandmaster, a former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist, and one of the greatest chess players of all time....
et al., he insisted that Putin's policies were to be seen as a direct continuation of Yeltsin's. Nonetheless, he was repeatedly mentioned in media rumors as a possible candidate for Prime Minister, both under Yeltsin and Putin.
Russian legislative election, 2003
Legislative elections were held in the Russian Federation on December 7, 2003. At stake were the 450 seats in the State Duma , the lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia ....
, Yabloko failed to cross the 5% threshold of Duma representation. Both vote-rigging and Yabloko's declining support may have been the primary factor. Yavlinsky later recalled that Putin telephoned him early on election night to congratulate him, apparently believing – or pretending to believe – that Yabloko had succeeded in gaining representation.
Yavlinsky refused to run for president in 2004
Russian presidential election, 2004
Presidential elections were held in Russia on 14 March 2004. Incumbent Vladimir Putin was seeking a second full four-year term. He was re-elected with 71.31% of the vote.-Sergey Glazyev:...
, claiming that Putin had rigged elections to the point of making them meaningless.
Yavlinsky remains a prominent critic of Putin and of Russia's leading United Russia
United Russia
United Russia is a centrist political party in Russia and the largest party in the country, currently holding 315 of the 450 seats in the State Duma. The party was founded in December 2001, through a merger of the Unity and Fatherland-All Russia parties...
Party. In a 12 January 2004 interview, he is quoted as saying:
We don't have an independent parliament any more. For the first time since the dissolution of the Soviet UnionDissolution of the Soviet UnionThe dissolution of the Soviet Union was the disintegration of the federal political structures and central government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , resulting in the independence of all fifteen republics of the Soviet Union between March 11, 1990 and December 25, 1991...
we again have a one-party parliamentSingle-party stateA single-party state, one-party system or single-party system is a type of party system government in which a single political party forms the government and no other parties are permitted to run candidates for election...
. There are no independent mass mediaIndependent mediaIndependent media refers to any form of media, such as radio, television, newspapers or the Internet, that is free of influence by government or corporate interests. The term has varied applications...
of any significance any more. There is no public control over secret serviceSecret serviceA secret service describes a government agency, or the activities of a government agency, concerned with the gathering of intelligence data. The tasks and powers of a secret service can vary greatly from one country to another. For instance, a country may establish a secret service which has some...
s and the law enforcement agenciesLaw enforcement agencyIn North American English, a law enforcement agency is a government agency responsible for the enforcement of the laws.Outside North America, such organizations are called police services. In North America, some of these services are called police while others have other names In North American...
, there is no independent legislature. The authorities considerably influence the elections. All elements of society are concentrated in the same hands which resemble the 1930s. This is a semi-Soviet system.
After Yabloko again failed to secure representation in the Russian legislative election, 2007
Russian legislative election, 2007
Legislative elections were held in the Russian Federation on 2 December 2007. At stake were the 450 seats in the State Duma, the lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia . Eleven parties were included in the ballot, including Russia's largest party, United Russia, which was supported by...
, there was some possibility of Yavlinsky running again for presidency in 2008
Russian presidential election, 2008
The Russian Presidential election of 2008, held on March 2, 2008 resulted in the election of Dmitry Medvedev as the third President of Russia. Medvedev, whose candidacy was supported by incumbent president Vladimir Putin and five political parties , received 71% of the vote, and defeated...
. However, most Yabloko members and Yavlinsky himself supported the long-shot and largely symbolic candidacy of emigré dissident Vladimir Bukovsky
Vladimir Bukovsky
Vladimir Konstantinovich Bukovsky is a leading member of the dissident movement of the 1960s and 1970s, writer, neurophysiologist, and political activist....
who in the end failed to clear legal obstacles to his registration.
Yavlinsky's leadership of Yabloko occasionally came under attacks from internal opponents, who eventually were defeated and not infrequently had to leave the party. The most prominent of them included Yury Boldyrev, YaBLoko's vice-leader and member of the upper house, in 1995; Vyacheslav Igrunov, a left-wing intellectual and a campaign manager, who quit over the restructuring of the organization in 2003; and some of the younger members, such as Ilya Yashin
Ilya Yashin
Ilya Yashin is one of the key leaders of the Russian political movement Solidarnost. He is also the leader of the Moscow branch of the People's Freedom Party, in which the Solidarnost participates....
and Maksim Reznik, who advocated for a closer alliance with other opposition groups (Yashin is no longer a Yabloko member, while Reznik stayed as a leader of its St. Petersburg branch).
On 22 June 2008, Yavlinsky stepped down as party leader at Yabloko's 15th congress, proposing in his place the candidacy of Moscow City Duma deputy Sergey Mitrokhin
Sergey Mitrokhin
Sergey Sergeyevich Mitrokhin is a Russian politician and statesman. Leader of the The Russian United Democratic Party "Yabloko". Deputy of the State Duma and of the Moscow City Hall .-References:...
who was elected the new party chairman. Yavlinsky remains a member of Yabloko's Political Committee (elected there with the largest number of votes) and a regular spokesman for the party, particularly in local election campaigns. Outside of politics, he is a professor of Moscow's Higher School of Economics. He is also a member of the Trilateral Commission
Trilateral Commission
The Trilateral Commission is a non-governmental, non-partisan discussion group founded by David Rockefeller in July 1973 to foster closer cooperation among the United States, Europe and Japan.-History:...
.
Personal life
Yavlinsky met his wife, Yelena, while studying at the Plekhanov Institute, and the couple have two children. Their son Mikhail was born in 1971 and currently works for the BBC Russian Service in London. Their other son, Alexei, was born in 1981 and works as a computer programmer in Moscow.A recent interview revealed that during the turbulent times of Russia's politics in the 90s Yavlinsky's opponents had his 23 year old piano-playing son kidnapped, and his fingers cut off and mailed to him. He declined to reveal who he thinks is behind the attack saying he "was receiving corresponding letters" prior to the incident.
See also
- Russian legislative election, 1995Russian legislative election, 1995Legislative elections were held in the Russian Federation on December 17, 1995. At stake were the 450 seats in the State Duma , the lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia ....
- Russian legislative election, 1999Russian legislative election, 1999Legislative elections were held in the Russian Federation on 19 December 1999. At stake were the 450 seats in the State Duma , the lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia...
- Russian legislative election, 2003Russian legislative election, 2003Legislative elections were held in the Russian Federation on December 7, 2003. At stake were the 450 seats in the State Duma , the lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia ....
Sources
- Transition to a Market Economy (500 Days Program) St.Martin’s Press, New York, 1991)
- Laissez-Faire versus Policy-Led Transformation (lesson of the Economic Reforms in Russia) EPIcenter-NikaPrint, 1994
- The Inefficiency of Laissez-Faire in Russia: Hysteresis Effects and the Need for Policy-Led Transformation Journal of Comparative Economics. Volume 19, N 1. 1994. S. Braguinsky and G. Yavlinsky.
- "Russia’s Phony Capitalism", Foreign Affairs, 1998
- Braguinsky S., Yavlinsky G. Incentives and Institutions: the transition to a market economy in Russia, Princeton University Press, 2000