Press Release, 21.04.2025

Photo: USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev at a summit with heads of states and governments of the seven leading industrial nations in London / Photo by Sergei Guneyev, RIA Novosti

In early 1991, Grigory Yavlinsky was developing a programme for integrating the USSR and Russian economy into the global system with Western participation on mutually beneficial terms, similar to the Marshall Plan for post-war Europe. The programme complemented the previously developed “500 Days” economic reform plan for transitioning from a planned to a market economy and the draft Economic Agreement between the Soviet republics.

The programme for integration into the world economy attracted Mikhail Gorbachev’s interest. Since it was oriented toward interaction with leading world powers, the USSR President approached his American counterpart, George Bush Sr., with a proposal to participate in its development. George Bush agreed, and Grigory Yavlinsky was invited to Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government to continue working on the programme with leading American economists. The prominent American economist Stanley Fischer took an active part in developing the programme. In Russia, the programme was called “Consent to a Chance,” while in the US it was named “The Grand Bargain”. The work continued for about five months. Harvard University Professor Graham Allison Jr. organised the effort.

On 31 May, 1991, Grigory Yavlinsky was received by President Bush. He presented the programme and outlined its key provisions. After Yavlinsky’s return from the US in June 1991, “The Grand Bargain” programme was discussed in detail by both Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin and was presented to the leaders of the Soviet republics as a possible way out of the political and economic crisis. Yavlinsky then had the opportunity to personally meet with the leaders of Germany, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom and actively promoted “The Grand Bargain” initiative in Europe, preparing to accompany the USSR President to the G7 summit scheduled to take place in London in mid-July 1991.

However, at the last moment, Mikhail Gorbachev changed his decision and went to London with a different plan — a programme prepared by Leonid Abalkin, Abel Aganbegyan, and Nikolai Petrakov. Grigory Yavlinsky expressed his disagreement with Gorbachev’s decision and refused to accompany him on the visit to London. The programme presented by Gorbachev did not receive support from the G7, and Moscow was left without the Western assistance it had counted on.

Recently, a declassified protocol from the US National Security Council meeting of 3 June, 1991, dedicated to discussing Yavlinsky’s programme (Burns Files, Box 2, OA/ID CF01308-005, George Bush Presidential Library) has been published. The document reveals that key US administration officials essentially gave a positive economic assessment of Grigory Yavlinsky’s programme and distinguished it from other proposals. However, they politically decided not to support it, as they pursued different political goals. As US Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady, a close ally of President Bush Sr., stated at the meeting, “Our goal is to turn them (the Soviet Union and Russia) into a third-rate power”.

Thus, both the USSR leadership and the US administration, each for their own reasons, rejected “The Grand Bargain” programme. A month after the G7 summit, a coup took place in Moscow, Mikhail Gorbachev was removed from power, and in December 1991, the USSR ceased to exist.

We are publishing the photos of the full protocol of the US NSC meeting below.