The Tragedy of Soviet Market Economists : The Failed Quest to Civilise Russia, 1972–2022

In this pathbreaking history, Tobias Rupprecht tells the dramatic story of Russia's transition from Communism, seen through the eyes of reformers who hoped to build a liberal future. Caught between democratic activism and authoritarian power, they faced impossible choices during the largest social and economic transformation of the modern era.

In this path-breaking history, Tobias Rupprecht offers a revisionist account of Russia's post-Soviet marketisation from the perspective of the advisors and ministers who oversaw this transformation. Based on extensive interviews with economists and research in state and private archives, he uncovers a significant minority of economic liberals from late Soviet academic and dissident circles who sought to chart a new path, believing free prices and private property were the foundations of a 'civilised country'. This provides a vital challenge to the dominant narrative that neoliberal advisors and organisations imposed harmful reforms on Russia after the collapse of Communism. Liberal reformers faced a profound dilemma – one for which Western advisors had no solution either: should they commit to democratic political activism and risk irrelevance, or align themselves with those in power and be co-opted by an authoritarian state determined to reassert its imperial strength?