Days of Defeat and Victory

Gaidar’s youthfulness, energy, and daring are symbolic of a new phenomenon in Russian politics - the emergence of a younger generation of politicians with a distinctly technocratic bent, looking firmly to the United States and Europe for inspiration and sharing little of the old generation’s nostalgia for Communist stability. It was largely the implementation of Gaidar’s policies that drove the Russian parliament to rebel against Boris Yeltsin in 1993, leading to the bloody tank assault on the parliament itself. Though Yeltsin prevailed, it was clear that the political and social costs of “shock therapy” were too great for Russia’s fragile democracy to bear, and Gaidar himself was ousted to appease the conservatives. His unfinished agenda was put on hold, though he later returned when Yeltsin needed to placate international financial forces. Gaidar remains active in Russian politics, having formed his own political party, Russia’s Democratic Choice. In this book, he brings his story through Yeltsin’s cliffhanger re-election in 1996, and assesses the still-precarious state of the market reforms and democratic politics.