The Tragedy of Russia's Reforms
Market Bolshevism Against Democracy
February 2001
The Tragedy of Russia’s Reforms presents a boldly original analysis of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the birth of the Russian state. The keys to understanding these events, the authors argue, are the prescriptions of Western “transitologists,” the International Monetary Fund, and advocates of economic “shock therapy.” These prescriptions allowed the nomenklatura and the financial “oligarchs” to acquire Russia’s industrial and natural resources and to heavily influence the country’s political destiny. In this long-awaited, sweeping interpretation, the authors skillfully place the contemporary Russian experience in the context of history, political theory, and Russia’s place in the international system.
In a remarkable book, The Tragedy of Russia’s Reforms: Market Bolshevism against Democracy, American political scientist Peter Reddaway and Russian scholar Dmitri Glinski capture one’s attention by introducing a socio–political lexicon to clarify [a] new period [in Russia]. Instead of a Western–style political and civic nation–state, today’s Russian state has become something we haven’t seen before: ‘an exclusive corporate entity, the property of the state apparatus, competing against similar but much weaker entities in an attempt to monopolize the coercion and protection market.
- Chicago Tribune
A compelling and provocative account of Russian postcommunist development. Captures as no other book the dramatic character of the transformation in Russia.
Lilia Shevtsova, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Moscow
Reddaway and Glinski have written a very important and impressive book— the first comprehensive account of post-Soviet Russia. With a clear voice and a bold thesis, they present a well written, thoughtfully argued and provocative study of this period. No doubt, this book will become one of the most important statements about the Yeltsin era written in the West.
Michael McFaul, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
A critical analysis of the Yeltsin years in power. It is a finely argued and frequently provocative account that deserves a respectful hearing.
Dusko Doder, The Nation
Dmitri Glinski
Dmitri Glinski (Vassiliev), a research associate at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations in Moscow, was formerly an active member of Russia’s democratic movement.
Peter Reddaway
Peter Reddaway is Professor Emeritus of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University. He received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from Cambridge University and did graduate work at Harvard and Moscow Universities and the London School of Economics and Political Science. Before joining GW in January 1989, he taught at the London School of Economics and then directed the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies. At GW, he taught—until his retirement in 2004—courses on Soviet and post-Soviet government and politics, and on human rights, and a multi-disciplinary introduction to Russia and Eastern Europe. His principal publications include Uncensored Russia: The Human Rights Movement in the USSR (1972), Psychiatric Terror: How Soviet Psychiatry is Used to Suppress Dissent (with S. Bloch, 1977), Soviet Psychiatric Abuse (with S. Bloch, 1984), Authority, Power and Policy in the USSR (ed. with T.H. Rigby and A. Brown, 1980), The Tragedy of Russia's Reforms: Market Bolshevism Against Democracy (with D.Glinski, 2001), and The Dynamics of Russian Politics: Putin's Reform of Federal-Regional Relations (with R. Orttung, vol. 1, 2003, vol. 2 due in 2004). Reddaway contributes articles and interviews to the international media, and provides consultation for government bodies concerned with foreign affairs.