Gennady Burbulis
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia specialists and Western policymakers have extensively debated the merits of neoliberal economic reforms and the causes of Russia’s authoritarian tilt. Trends established early in Russia’s transition from communism, like the consolidation of wealth in the hands of oligarchs and the strengthening of presidential power are often regarded as harbingers of Russia’s eventual political future.
As Russia struggled to stabilize its economy and assert itself as a world power during the 1990s, Boris Yeltsin’s tenure as president from 1991-1999 has become inextricably linked with ineffectuality and leaderless chaos; sullying the atmosphere of liberal optimism that surrounded his rise to power.
To gain a first-hand perspective of Russia’s economic and political struggles during the early 1990s, I interviewed one of Yeltsin’s principal advisors, Gennady Burbulis, at the University of Oxford on March 28, 2017. Burbulis served as First Deputy Prime Minister of Russia from November 1991 to June 1992, before leaving the presidential administration in a shroud of controversy and criticism of his support for radical economic reform.
Burbulis’s perspective on Russia’s transition process is a unique one, as he was the leading architect of the December 1991 Belovezha Accords. The Belovezha Accords, were signed by the leaders of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, and provided the legal framework for the eventual dissolution of the USSR. According to Belarus’s first President Stanislav Shushkevich, Burbulis surprised many of his fellow diplomats with his bold announcement that USSR was no longer a viable state. Burbulis’s initiative caused the leaders of other constituent Soviet republics to follow suit in rejecting the Soviet Union’s supranational authority.
During his speech at Oxford and in our interview, Burbulis justified his support for the USSR’s dissolution on structural grounds. Burbulis claimed “radical reforms, which should have been made earlier, were necessary by late 1991.” In Burbulis’s view, the Soviet Union was on the brink of anarchic chaos after the August 1991 coup against Mikhail Gorbachev, and patchwork agreements aimed at preserving its territorial integrity, like the 9+1 formula, were destined to fail.
While the inevitability of the Soviet Union’s collapse was evident to Burbulis, he conceded that the USSR’s fall was a massive shock to the international community. In one stroke, Burbulis claims the “twentieth century came to an end.” Despite this abrupt demise, Burbulis believes that the USSR’s ability to avoid a Yugoslavia-style civil war and collapse peacefully was the direct consequence of the Belovezha Accords, and subsequent integration provisions binding Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan.
Even though Russia avoided a major civil war within its borders, the USSR’s collapse was followed by a marked decline in the standard of living for ordinary Russians and a prolonged economic depression. Burbulis’s complicity in this economic chaos has been widely cited as the reason for his eventual fall from power. In our interview, Burbulis emphasized that while he advised the Russian government on economic policy, the chief office, which implemented these reforms was Yeltsin’s Ministry of Finance headed by Yegor Gaidar.
According to Burbulis, Gaidar faced serious challenges during the early 1990s, as he needed to create a “legal foundation for a capitalist economy” from scratch. Gaidar set out immediately to establish a legal justification for the existence of private property, and privatization was the Kremlin’s chief priority. For Russia’s newly privatized economy to remain viable, a new monetary and taxation system needed to be devised. In Burbulis’s view, these reforms ultimately “saved Russia from falling apart,” as the central government’s ability to stabilize the Russian economy was severely hamstrung by low oil prices.
Ultimately, Burbulis contended that systemic constraints prevented Russia from developing small businesses, as Russian economic reformers were focused primarily on employing as many people as possible. Large corporations were created from state-owned conglomerates, and these businesses became the “foundations of capitalism in Russia.” The dominance of these large corporations continues to hinder diversification and restrict economic growth in Russia.
In addition to his involvement in the economic reform process, Burbulis distinguished himself as a leading shaper of Russia’s foreign and defense policies during the early 1990s. During the early Yeltsin period, Burbulis argued that incoherencies in Russian policy could be attributed to Soviet legacies. In our interview, he argued that these legacies created an “imperial syndrome” in Russia, which caused Russia to pursue “derzhavnost” (great power status). This hindered Russia’s ability to establish strong alliances with democratic European countries, setting the stage for the Russia-West confrontation.
Disrespect for Russia’s status as a great power has continued to undercut the harmony of the Russia-West relationship under Vladimir Putin. Even though many Western analysts regarded Burbulis as an ally within the Russian elite coterie during the early 1990s, Burbulis believes that the West’s scathing condemnations of Russian conduct in Ukraine, attempts to isolate Russia through sanctions, and treatment of Russia as a junior partner is incompatible with the kind of consensus-building necessary for functional diplomacy. Building on the themes addressed in his November 2016 speech at the Atlantic Council, Burbulis argues that a “softer approach” is necessary for a durable improvement in Russia-West relations.
Even though Burbulis’s legacy will be forever linked to and shrouded by the chaos of the Yeltsin-era transition period, his narratives on the collapse of the Soviet Union, the emergence of privatization in Russia and ultimate deterioration of Russia-West relations provide useful lessons for contemporary policymakers on both sides of the transatlantic divide. Burbulis’s assessment of the Soviet collapse as an “optimistic tragedy,” leaves us with a tempered but positive reflection, as Russia continues to reconcile itself with the challenges of transition from seven decades of communist rule.
Samuel Ramani is a DPhil candidate in International Relations at St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford. He is also a journalist who writes regularly for the Washington Post, Huffington Post and Diplomat magazine. He can be followed on Twitter at samramani2 and on Facebook at Samuel Ramani.