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Yegor Gaidar
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Yegor Timurovich Gaidar (; ) (born March 19, 1956) is a Russian economist and politician, and was the Acting Prime Minister of Russia from June 15 1992 to December 14 1992. He is the grandson of famous Soviet writers Arkady Gaidar, on the side of his father, Pravda military correspondent Timur Gaidar, who fought in the Bay of Pigs Invasion and was a friend of Raśl Castro. On his mother's side he is the grandson of Pavel Bazhov. His daughter, Maria Gaidar is a leader of the political youth movement "Yes!" in Russia.
ar graduated with honors from the Moscow State University, Department of Economics, in 1978 and worked as a researcher in several academic institutes.
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Encyclopedia
Yegor Timurovich Gaidar (; ) (born March 19, 1956) is a Russian economist and politician, and was the Acting Prime Minister of Russia from June 15 1992 to December 14 1992. He is the grandson of famous Soviet writers Arkady Gaidar, on the side of his father, Pravda military correspondent Timur Gaidar, who fought in the Bay of Pigs Invasion and was a friend of Raśl Castro. On his mother's side he is the grandson of Pavel Bazhov. His daughter, Maria Gaidar is a leader of the political youth movement "Yes!" in Russia.
Professional life
Gaidar graduated with honors from the Moscow State University, Department of Economics, in 1978 and worked as a researcher in several academic institutes. A long-time member of the Communist Party and an editor of the CPSU ideological journal Communist during the perestroika, he turned a liberal during the time of Yeltsin's reforms. In 1991 he quit the Communist Party and joined Yeltsin's government.
While in government, Gaidar advocated liberal economic reforms according to the principle of shock therapy. His most well-known decision was to abolish price regulation by the state, which immediately resulted in a major increase of prices and amounted to officially authorizing a market economy in Russia. He also cut military procurement and industrial subsidies, and reduced the budget deficit. Gaidar was the First Vice-Premier of the Russian Government and Minister of Economics from 1991 until 1992, and Minister of Finance from February 1992 until April 1992.
He was appointed Acting Prime Minister under President Boris Yeltsin in 1992 from June 15 until December 14, when the anti-Yeltsin Russian Congress of People's Deputies refused to confirm Gaidar in this position and Viktor Chernomyrdin was eventually chosen as a compromise figure. Gaidar continued to advise the new government. On September 18, 1993, he was again appointed the First Vice-Premier under Chernomyrdin as a deliberate snub to the opposition. He had active role in the Russian constitutional crisis of 1993: on October 3, he famously spoke on live television, calling on common Muscovites to defend Yeltsin's regime. In 1993 Duma elections, in the aftermath of the crisis, Gaidar was the leader of the pro-government, liberal bloc Russia's Choice and was seen by some as a possible future Prime Minister. However, due to the bloc's failure to win the plurality of votes in the election, Gaidar's role in the government diminished and he finally resigned on January 20, 1994.
After 1994
Later in 1994, after leaving the government, he became a founding member and chairman of the Democratic Choice of Russia party. However, in the 1995 Duma elections, the role of the government party was assumed by Chernomyrdin's Our Home is Russia and Gaidar's party gathered only 3.86% of votes, failing to cross the 5% threshold. In 1999, he became a founding member and co-chairman, along with his longtime political ally Anatoly Chubais of the Union of Right Forces and managed to return to Duma after the 1999 elections. He served as a deputy of the State Duma until 2003. After URF's failure to regain seats in the parliament in 2003, Gaidar gradually retired from public political activities, concentrating on research in economics and offering occasional consulting services to the Russian government.
Yegor Gaidar has over 100 publications in Australia, Czech Republic, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary,Ireland, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, Poland, Spain, Taiwan, UK, USA, and by international institutions.
In his book "Collapse of an Empire: Lessons for Modern Russia" he provided an analysis of the relationship between the energy prices and political events in Russia. He suggested that one of main reasons behind the Soviet Union's fall was the low price of oil. Prices were also low during Yeltsin's rule, which was a serious problem that made political and economic reforms in the country very difficult. According to Gaidar, it is wrong to rely only on oil and gas, as it creates only a false impression of prosperity and stability in the country. He argued that a lot more must be done to promote real economic development.
Positions held
- Director of the Institute for the Economy in Transition www.iet.ru
- Executive Vice-President of the International Democratic Union (Conservative International)
- Steering Committee member "Arrabida Meetings" (Portugal)
- Member of the Baltic Sea Cooperation Council under the Prime-Minister of Sweden
- Member of the Editorial Board of "Vestnik Evropy" (Moscow)
- Member of the Advisory Board of the "Acta Oeconomica" (Budapest)
- Member of the Advisory Board of the CASE Foundation (Warsaw)
Honorary positions
- Honorary Professor, University of California, Berkeley.
- Terry Sanford Distinguished Lecturer, Duke University
- Honorary Academy member of the Ukrainian Academy of Management
- Honorary Director, Russia- Ukraine Institute for Personnel and Management
2006 illness and alleged poisoning
On November 28, 2006, Yegor Gaidar was found unconscious in County Kildare, Ireland where he had been presenting his new book Lasting Time: Russia in the World. He was taken to a Dublin hospital but doctors said there was no serious threat to his health. There have been suspicions of a poisoning but Gaidar and his close ally Anatoly Chubais have refrained from accusing the Russian Security Service. On December 6 2006, Gaidar did claim in an op-ed published in both Russian-language and English-language publications, that he was poisoned by adversaries of the Russian authorities. He did not elaborate on who these adversaries may be. He repeated his claim on the BBC programme Hardtalk.
Talks and interviews
At a talk show with Yevgenia Albats on June 17, 2007, Gaidar predicted a probable sequence of future political events in Russia based on his personal sources and expertise. In response to one-sided recognition of Kosovo by Western powers, Russia will recognize independence of Abkhazia and South Osetia. This will lead to a military conflict of Russia and Georgia, and urgent changes in Russian Constitution.
His books
- Collapse of an Empire: Lessons for Modern Russia, by Yegor Gaidar, Brookings Institution Press (October 17, 2007), ISBN 0-815-73114-0.
- Russian Reform / International Money (Lionel Robbins Lectures) by Yegor Gaidar and Karl Otto Pöhl (Hardcover - Jul 6, 1995)
- Days of Defeat and Victory (Jackson School Publications in International Studies) by E. T. Gaidar, Yegor Gaidar, Michael McFaul, and Jane Ann Miller (Dec 1999)
- State and Evolution: Russia's Search for a Free Market by E. T. Gaidar, Yegor Gaidar, and Jane Ann Miller (Hardcover - Aug 2003)
- The Economics of Russian Transition by Yegor Gaidar (Aug 15, 2002)
- Ten Years of Russian Economic Reform by Sergei Vasiliev and Yegor Gaidar (Mar 25, 1999)
External links
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- , explaining the underlying reasons for the collapse of the Soviet Union
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