Grigory Yavlinsky’s web-site, 4.10.2023

30 years ago Russia was on the brink of civil war. The illiterate “price liberalisation” of state monopolies, carried out literally within a day in January 1992, in a country where there were no private enterprises at all, caused hyperinflation of 2.600% by the end of the year – prices grew by 26 times. At the same time, the Russian government abandoned the Economic Cooperation Agreement with the former Soviet republics, which it had already signed in October 1991, which led to a decline in production and shutdowns of industrial enterprises. Total impoverishment of the population, unemployment and a rapid increase in crime began. However, the authorities ignored the growing indignation of citizens and categorically refused to engage in meaningful dialogue, labelling those who expressed pain and confusion and asked fair questions as “anti-reform forces.”

In order to suppress protest sentiments, the country’s leadership made decisions that went beyond the framework of the Constitution in force at that time. The result of all this was a harsh confrontation between the executive power in the person of President Yeltsin and his circle, and the representative power – the Supreme Council. Nationalist groups, illegal armed groups, and radical representatives of the communist opposition tried to take advantage of the conflict. Against this background, a split began in the country’s armed forces.

On 3 October, 1993, armed clashes began in the Russian capital, and people were killed. In order to prevent the outbreak of civil war and bloodshed throughout the country, the state was forced to use the army. Within 24 hours, armed clashes in Moscow ceased. However, subsequently, despite the demands of the “Yavlinsky-Boldyrev-Lukin” faction formed in the first State Duma for an uncompromising parliamentary investigation into the reasons of incitement to fratricide in September-October 1993, the executive power, through manipulation and bargaining, achieved from the majority of newly elected deputies – “The Democratic Choice” of [then Prime Minister] Yegor Gaidar, Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s LDPR, Gennady Zyuganov’s the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and others – a shameful refusal to investigate. No conclusions were drawn; the question of correcting erroneous reforms was not even raised.

The result of those events was the strengthening of authoritarian power in the country. Soon the war in Chechnya began, and a large-scale criminal privatisation was carried out under the guise of so-called loans-for-shares auctions. This led to the merger of power and property and the creation of a pseudo-state authoritarian-corporate system in Russia, which did not envisage the separation of powers, an independent judiciary, a real parliament, mass media independent of the state, trade unions and, in general, the existence of a real civil society.

The failure to understand and investigate the causes of the 1993 tragedy was one of the important factors that led the country to today’s situation.

Grigory Yavlinsky

is Chairman of the Federal Political Committee of the Russian United Democratic Party Yabloko, Vice President of Liberal International, PhD in Economics, Professor of the National Research University Higher School of Economics.