Gaidar's descendants are not his blood relatives. Yegor Gaidar, Russian politician: biography, personal life, reforms Who is Yegor Gaidar

Well-known economist, director of the Institute for the Economy in Transition (1990-1991, 1992-1993, 1995-2009). Former co-chairman of the pre-election bloc and the SPS party (2001-2004), co-head of the Right Cause public bloc (1997-2001), chairman of the Democratic Choice of Russia party (1994-2001), deputy of the State Duma of the first and third convocations. From 1992 to 1993 he was an adviser to the President of the Russian Federation on economic policy issues. Former deputy chairman of the government of the RSFSR (1991-1992) and acting chairman of the government of the Russian Federation (1992), head of the "government of reformers", author of "shock therapy" and price liberalization. Died December 16, 2009.

Yegor Timurovich Gaidar was born on March 19, 1956 in Moscow into the family of a military correspondent for the Pravda newspaper, Rear Admiral Timur Gaidar. Both grandfathers of Yegor Gaidar - Arkady Gaidar and Pavel Bazhov - are famous writers.

In 1978, Gaidar graduated from the Faculty of Economics of Lomonosov Moscow State University, in November 1980 he completed his postgraduate studies at Moscow State University. In graduate school at Moscow State University, Gaidar studied under the guidance of Academician Stanislav Shatalin, who is considered not only his teacher, but also an ideological associate. After graduating from graduate school, Gaidar defended his Ph.D. thesis on estimated indicators in the economic accounting system of enterprises.

In 1980-1986, Gaidar worked at the All-Union Research Institute for System Research of the State Committee for Science and Technology and the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1986-1987, he was a leading researcher at the Institute of Economics and Forecasting Scientific and Technological Progress of the USSR Academy of Sciences, where he worked under the guidance of Academician Lev Abalkin, who later became Deputy Union Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov.

In 1982, Gaidar met Anatoly Chubais (later the main ideologist of privatization) when he was invited to St. Petersburg to speak at "Chubais" economic seminars. According to other sources, Gaidar met Chubais and Pyotr Aven (in the future - a big businessman) in 1983-1984, when he participated in the work of a state commission that studied the possibilities of economic transformations in the USSR.

In the summer of 1986, in Zmeina Gorka near Leningrad, Gaidar, Aven and Chubais organized their first open conference.

In 1987-1990, Gaidar served as editor of the economic department, and a member of the editorial board of the Kommunist magazine. In 1990, Gaidar was the editor of the economics department of the Pravda newspaper.

In 1990-1991, Gaidar headed the Institute for Economic Policy at the USSR Academy of National Economy, where he defended his doctoral dissertation.

On August 19, 1991, after the start of the GKChP coup, Gaidar announced his withdrawal from the CPSU and joined the defenders of the White House. During the August events, Gaidar met with the State Secretary of the Russian Federation Gennady Burbulis.

In September, Gaidar headed the working group of economists created by Burbulis and Alexei Golovkov at the State Council of the Russian Federation. In October 1991, Gaidar was appointed Deputy Chairman of the Government of the RSFSR for Economic Policy, Minister of Economy and Finance of the RSFSR. Gaidar's name is associated with such events in Russian history as the famous "shock therapy" and price liberalization. He took this post during the collapse of the Soviet Union, when the laws ceased to operate, instructions - to be executed, power structures - to function. The Soviet system of control over foreign economic activity did not work, customs ceased to function. According to Gaidar himself, in a situation where there were no reserves left - neither budgetary nor foreign exchange, the only way out was to unfreeze prices.

In 1992, Gaidar became acting chairman of the government of the Russian Federation. As head of the "government of reformers," Gaidar took an active part in creating the privatization program and putting it into practice.

In 1992-1993, Gaidar served as director of the Institute for Economic Problems in Transition and was an adviser to the President of the Russian Federation on economic policy issues. In September 1993, Gaidar became the first deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers - the government of the Russian Federation.

On October 3-4, 1993, during the constitutional crisis in Moscow, Gaidar called on the people to take to the streets and fight for the new regime to the end.

From 1994 to December 1995, Gaidar was a deputy of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, chairman of the Russia's Choice faction.

In June 1994, Gaidar became chairman of the Democratic Choice of Russia party (he remained the leader of the party until May 2001). Colleagues in the FER gave him a playful nickname - "Iron Winnie the Pooh" - for his characteristic appearance, unbending character and increased efficiency.

In 1995, Gaidar again headed the institute he created in 1990, which became known as the Institute for the Economy in Transition.

In December 1998, the Russian liberal democrats united in the Right Cause public bloc, whose leadership included Gaidar, Chubais, Boris Nemtsov, Boris Fedorov, and Irina Khakamada. On August 24, Sergei Kiriyenko, Nemtsov and Khakamada announced the creation of an electoral bloc called the Union of Right Forces (SPS). In the 1999 parliamentary elections, Gaidar, on the list of the Union of Right Forces, became a member of the State Duma of the third convocation. The founding congress of the SPS party took place on May 26, 2001, and Gaidar became one of its co-chairs. After the defeat of the Union of Right Forces in the elections in December 2003, Gaidar left the leadership of the party and was no longer included in the new composition of the presidium of the political council of the Union of Right Forces, elected in February 2004 - according to Leonid Gozman, the party's curator for ideology, "Gaidar and Nemtsov remain leaders, not holding formal posts.

Gaidar an honorary professor at the University of California, a member of the editorial board of the journal "Vestnik Evropy", a member of the advisory board of the journal "Acta Oeconomica".

On November 24, 2006, while attending a conference in Ireland, Gaidar suddenly felt ill and was taken to the hospital with signs of acute poisoning. Journalists noted that this happened the day after Alexander Litvinenko, a former FSB officer, a sharp critic of the Kremlin's policy and personally President Vladimir Putin, died in a London hospital from poisoning with radioactive polonium. However, Gaidar managed to recover and the next day he flew to Moscow, where he continued his treatment. Gaidar declined to comment on suggestions that he was deliberately poisoned.

In September 2008, SPS leader Nikita Belykh resigned as chairman of the party. The reasons for this act of the politician were soon explained: it was reported that the Union of Right Forces would become part of a new right-wing party created by the Kremlin within a few months. Gaidar refused to participate in the creation of a new structure and filed an application for withdrawal from the party. At the same time, according to the politician, he is "not ready to say a word in condemnation" of the position of those who believe that "political structures loyal to the regime, but formally not part of the ruling party" can play a positive role. However, soon he, together with Chubais and Leonid Gozman, who temporarily headed the Union of Right Forces, called on party members to cooperate with the authorities to create a right-wing liberal party. Insisting on the need for such a step, the authors of the statement admitted that "a democratic regime does not function in Russia." They expressed doubt that the right would in the future "succeed in defending our values ​​in full." "But we certainly will not be forced to defend strangers," the leaders of the Union of Right Forces argued.

December 16, 2009 Gaidar died at the age of 54. According to RIA Novosti, the cause of death was a detached blood clot, the next day Gaidar's daughter said that he died of pulmonary edema caused by myocardial ischemia.

The media wrote that Gaidar is a man of radical right-wing views in politics and economics. He was the author of the monographs "Economic Reforms and Hierarchical Structures", "State and Evolution", "Anomalies of Economic Growth", "Days of Defeats and Victories", Long Time".

Gaidar spoke English, Serbo-Croatian and Spanish. He was a good chess player and played football.

Gaidar was married for the second time to the daughter of the writer Arkady Natanovich Strugatsky, Marianna, whom he met at school. He left three sons - Peter from his first marriage with Irina Smirnova and Ivan and Pavel from the second (Ivan is Marianna's son from her first marriage), and daughter Maria, who was born in 1982, when Gaidar and Smirnova were going to get divorced. After the divorce, Peter began to live with his father and his parents, while Maria stayed with her mother and bore her surname for a long time. Only in 2004 did Gaidar acknowledge his paternity, and she took his last name. It is known that Maria Gaidar was an employee of the Institute for the Economy in Transition and the leader of the youth movement "Democratic Alternative" - ​​"Yes!".

Russian politician, one of the main leaders and ideologists of the economic reforms of the early 1990s in Russia, founder and director of the Institute for Economic Policy. E. T. Gaidara, author of numerous publications on economics, several monographs on the economic history of Russia and the analysis of the transition from a planned economy to a market economy.

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In 1990, Yegor Gaidar became director of the Institute for Economic Policy, and in 1991 he participated in negotiations in Belovezhskaya Pushcha of three union republics: Russia, and - on the creation of the CIS.

In 1993, Gaidar became a member of the first convocation, then he was a deputy in the Duma of the third convocation.

• Yegor Gaidar was one of the key participants in the events on the part of the government during the 1993 Constitutional crisis and the termination of the activities of the Supreme Soviet of Russia.
• Gaidar Took part in the development of the Tax Code, the Budget Code, the legislation on the Stabilization Fund.
• Organizer of anti-war rallies during.
• Founder and one of the leaders of the parties "Russia" and "Union of Right Forces".
• Head of the Russia's Choice faction in the State Duma of the first convocation (1993-1995)
• Member of the SPS faction of the Duma of the third convocation (1999-2003).

Yegor Gaidar biography

Father, Timur Gaidar (1926-1999) - foreign war correspondent for the Pravda newspaper, rear admiral, son of the famous Soviet writer Arkady Petrovich Gaidar from his first wife Lia Lazarevna Solomyanskaya.

Mother - Ariadna Pavlovna Bazhova (born 1925), daughter of the writer Pavel Petrovich Bazhov and Valentina Alexandrovna Ivanitskaya. Thus, Yegor Gaidar was the grandson of two famous Soviet writers.

Yegor Gaidar's parents belonged to the 1960s intellectuals who professed democratic views.

As a child, Gaidar lived with his parents in Cuba (from 1962, during the Caribbean crisis, until the autumn of 1964). Ernesto also visited the house in Cuba.

Since 1966, Yegor Gaidar spent part of his time with his parents in Yugoslavia, where he first became interested in the economic problems of reforms. There he was actively involved in chess, played in youth competitions.

In 1971, the family returned to Moscow, and Yegor Gaidar began to attend school number 152, which he graduated from with a gold medal 2 years later.

In 1980, Gaidar Yegor Timurovich defended his Ph.D. thesis on the mechanisms of self-financing, joined the ranks of the CPSU, a member of which he remained until the August 1991 coup.

From 1980 to 1986, after graduating from Moscow State University, he was assigned to the Research Institute for System Research, where he began working as part of a group of young scientists.

In 1986, Yegor Gaidar, as part of a group led by Stanislav Shatalin, was transferred to work at the Institute of Economics of the USSR, and in the scientific community, as a result of the policy of publicity announced by Gorbachev, it became possible to discuss issues related to preparations for the transition to market relations.

In October 1991, the economic reform program was presented at the 5th Congress of People's Deputies and received the approval of the delegates. A few days later, Gaidar Yegor Timurovich was appointed Deputy Chairman of the Government of the RSFSR, in charge of issues of the economic bloc.

From December 1992 to September 1993, Yegor Gaidar was engaged in scientific work. In addition, he advised on economic policy issues. The politician was one of the key figures during the 1993 constitutional crisis as well.

From December 1993 to the end of 1995, Gaidar was a deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation. In parallel with this, he headed the Democratic Choice of Russia party.

In 1998, together with Boris Fedorov and Irina Khakamada, he entered the leadership of the Right Cause bloc. The following year, he passed to the State Duma from the SPS party, created by Khakamada and Sergei Kiriyenko.

In 2001, he became one of the co-chairs of the party, after its defeat in the elections in December 2003, he left the leadership, but remained in the Union of Right Forces until 2008.

On November 24, 2006, during a seminar in Dublin, Yegor Gaidar was hospitalized with symptoms of severe poisoning. This story remains not entirely clear. It is only obvious that the consequences of the poisoning hastened his departure.

The death of Yegor Gaidar occurred on December 16, 2009 in his house, located in the village of Uspensky near Moscow, Gaidar was 53 years old.

Family

• First wife - Irina Smirnova, Gaidar married at 22. Daughter - .

In the summer of 2015, she was appointed deputy chairman of the Odessa Regional Administration on the recommendation, and a little later she renounced Russian citizenship.

• Second wife - Marianna Strugatskaya, general son Pavel Gaidar.

Yegor Timurovich Gaidar, an outstanding Russian economist, politician, statesman, was born on March 19, 1956.

The grandson of two famous Soviet writers, Arkady Gaidar and Pavel Bazhov, the son of a well-known journalist, writer, war correspondent, Rear Admiral Timur Gaidar and historian Ariadna Pavlovna Bazhova, Yegor was brought up in a family where the spirit of courage, self-esteem, independence and loyalty were cultivated debt.

Gaidar's very first childhood years were spent in Moscow, then, on the eve of the Caribbean crisis, he left for Cuba with his parents. Much later, he recalled this trip: “... The still working, not collapsed American tourist civilization, along with the genuine cheerful revolutionary enthusiasm of the winners, crowded rallies, songs, carnivals ... The window of my room at the Riomar Hotel overlooks the Gulf of Mexico , below is a swimming pool, next to it is an artillery battery. The building, where diplomats and specialists from Eastern Europe lived, is periodically shelled. Our battery fires back. From the window you can see the slogan in yellow neon: “Motherland - or death!”, And in blue: “We will win!”. The cleaning lady puts the machine gun in the corner and takes the mop...”.

Behind the celebratory façade of the Cuban revolution, features of economic problems were visible even to a child. Food shortages began in the country, a rationing system was introduced, and evidence of confusion and sloppiness was all around. “A hundred kilometers from Havana (fruits) lie in rotting mountains. It is impossible to transport them from there and sell them here, this is called the word “speculation”. Why so, I can not understand. And no one can explain it."

In 1966, Pravda correspondent Timur Gaidar went to Yugoslavia with his family. An erudite and sensible teenager, who looked at the world quite like an adult, ended up in a free European Belgrade. Yugoslavia of those years made a strong impression: the only country with a socialist market economy where economic reforms were underway, and people around were discussing the most sensitive topics. Yegor became seriously interested in philosophy and history, read a lot and independently (at the age of 12!) studied the fundamental works of the classics of Marxism. He was surprised to find that behind the emasculated ideological façade, there was hidden depth, talent, and imagination of the greatest thinkers of their time. “How fascinating, brilliant it is, and how stupid, dogmatized it can be,” he wrote to his grandmother about his impressions.

In Yugoslavia, Yegor spent a lot of time independently studying many books on philosophy, economics, and law banned in the Union. He already communicated almost on an equal footing with his father's friends and like-minded people, who discussed problems in Soviet society and the economy with frankness unthinkable for the USSR. Gaidar independently came “...to the realization of the need to put an end to the bureaucracy's monopoly on property. And to move from bureaucratic state socialism to market socialism, based on workers' self-management, broad rights for labor collectives, market mechanisms, and competition.

In 1971, the Gaidar family returned to Moscow, and Yegor was assigned to school No. 152, one of the best in the city. There was an unusual, pleasant creative atmosphere. Studying was easy for Gaidar - this was facilitated by his phenomenal memory for numbers, facts and historical events. In 1973, he graduated from high school with a gold medal and immediately entered the Faculty of Economics of Moscow State University. Lomonosov, where he specialized in industrial economics. “... The essence of the task of education is to train specialists who can skillfully substantiate any changing decisions of the party with references to the authority of the founders of Marxism-Leninism. It's easy to learn, because I know the basic work well. The quotes bounce off my teeth like “twice two is four,” Gaidar wrote in Days of Defeats and Victories.

Gaidar got married in his second year. A completely independent, adult life began. He considered taking money from his parents as something indecent, and began to earn extra money, carving out time after school. In 1978, Gaidar graduated from Moscow State University with honors and, predictably, remained in graduate school. Having defended his Ph.D. on the topic "Estimated indicators in the mechanism of cost accounting of production associations (enterprises)", he was assigned to the All-Union Research Institute for System Research of the State Committee for Science and Technology and the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

In the yard - 1980. There was a war in Afghanistan, academician Sakharov was sent into exile, 45 countries boycotted the XXII Olympic Games in Moscow. In Poland, Lech Walesa's Solidarity trade union was registered; in the United States, Republican Ronald Reagan won the presidential race by a huge margin. The world was changing rapidly, only in the USSR everything seemed to remain the same.

In the early 1980s, the main research topic of a group of young scientists led by academician Stanislav Shatalin, which, in addition to Gaidar, included Petr Aven, Oleg Ananyin, Vyacheslav Shironin, was a comparative analysis of the results of economic reforms in the countries of the socialist camp. At that time, the institute turned into one of the centers actively involved in the development of projects for economic transformation: various almost liberal ideas were in the air, scientific discussion went far beyond the framework of Marxist political economy. Very soon, Gaidar came to a firm conviction: the country should start market reforms as soon as possible, launch self-regulation mechanisms, and reduce the presence of the state in the economy.

In 1983, Gaidar met Anatoly Chubais, the informal leader of the Leningrad group of economists at the Institute of Engineering and Economics. A core of young and energetic like-minded people quickly formed around them, united by the desire to study the processes that took place in the economy and society and find ways of transformation, taking into account the real situation in the country. Everyone unanimously called Yegor Gaidar the generally recognized informal leader of this community.

Beginning in 1984, Gaidar and his colleagues began to be involved in work on the documents of the Politburo Commission for the Improvement of Management of the National Economy. The commission, in whose work the new generation of Politburo members, headed by Mikhail Gorbachev, was interested, was to prepare a moderate program of economic reforms along the lines of the Hungarian reforms of the late 1960s. Young scientists prepared their proposals based on the conviction that the authorities have a desire to implement reforms before the threat of catastrophic self-destruction of the economy becomes a reality. However, the Politburo did not want to hear them. As Gaidar later recalled, the answer was: “Do you want to build market socialism? Forget! It's outside of political realities."

The topic seemed to be closed. Nevertheless, in 1986, Shatalin's group received a tempting offer: they were transferred from VNIISI to the Institute of Economics and Forecasting Scientific and Technological Progress of the USSR Academy of Sciences, where Gaidar quickly became a leading researcher. Soon, a semi-underground seminar of market economists who were well acquainted with the realities of the Soviet economy and understood that the deeply bureaucratic administrative market required urgent radical reform was held at the camp site of the Leningrad Financial and Economic Institute "Snake Hill". Yegor Gaidar, Anatoly Chubais, Sergei Vasilyev, Petr Aven, Sergei Ignatiev, Vyacheslav Shironin, Oleg Ananyin, Konstantin Kagalovsky, Georgy Trofimov, Yuri Yarmagaev and others took part in the seminar, no less than 30 people in total. In a narrow circle, very taboo topics were actively discussed. “We all acutely feel the feeling of freedom that has opened up, scope for scientific research, for a real study of the processes taking place in the economy ... Everyone agrees on the need for orderly reforms that prepare the Soviet economy for the gradual restoration of market mechanisms and private property relations. And at the same time, we realize that this will be an extremely difficult task,” Gaidar recalled this time.

The beginning of the reforms was hindered by ideological taboos, censorship, and the general inertia of dilapidated state mechanisms that were unable to respond to the challenges of the time. At that moment, it seems that the unbelievable happened: the top political leadership tacitly allowed a public discussion on the most important political issues to begin. The results were not long in coming - materials began to appear on the pages of the largest state publications, horrifying the censors, who had completely lost their bearings ...

In 1986, an old acquaintance of Gorbachev, Academician Ivan Frolov, was put in charge of the Kommunist magazine. He immediately updated the editorial board and invited the well-known economist Otto Latsis, who had been in disgrace for many years, to the post of first deputy editor-in-chief. Latsis unexpectedly offered Gaidar the post of head of the magazine's economic department. “... I am aware that our notes and opuses in professional publications cannot in any way correct that dangerous chain of mistakes that destabilize the national economy ... It seems that the authorities simply do not understand what is happening, does not realize the consequences of ill-conceived decisions. Under these conditions, the opportunity to speak out on strategic issues from the pages of such an influential publication as Kommunist is a rare success,” Gaidar later recalled.

While working as an economics editor, first at the Kommunist magazine and then at the Pravda newspaper, the armchair scientist, widely known, as they say, in “very narrow circles”, unexpectedly found himself in the spotlight and got a real opportunity to convey his ideas to a wide audience. circle of readers, to clearly identify the most acute problems that require urgent solutions.

There was hope among reformist economists that the necessary changes could be made smoothly, without taking things to the extreme. According to numerous testimonies, Yegor Gaidar himself, whose name is today strongly associated with the concept of "shock therapy" in the economy, initially assumed completely different scenarios for the development of events. Until the very end of the 1980s, he was set on consistent transformations that could be implemented in Soviet conditions, based on the experience of Yugoslavia and Hungary. However, time passed, and the indecision and half-hearted measures of the country's leadership only aggravated the situation.

At several seminars of economists in 1987-89, a close-knit team of future reformers finally took shape, the leader of which is Yegor Gaidar. Soon the thought of the near inevitable collapse of the Soviet Union was voiced here. Gaidar, who at first did not consider the option of abandoning the socialist model of the economy, was extremely clearly aware of the fact that there were no longer any chances for a calm resolution of the accumulated problems: the failure of the state program “500 Days” put an end to this issue. In July 1990, he first seriously discussed the radical reform program at a meeting with Western economists in the Hungarian city of Sopron. "Shock therapy", price liberalization, privatization, financial stabilization, reduction of government spending, the fight against hyperinflation seemed to be completely inevitable and necessary measures in a situation of a systemic crisis. Gaidar's team received full confirmation of their own research from authoritative international experts, but these conclusions could hardly please them: severe trials awaited the country ahead.

By the beginning of the 90s, Gaidar was a scientist with a stable scientific reputation, a doctor of sciences, an experienced polemist, a public figure, the founder and permanent head of the Institute for Economic Policy at the Academy of the National Economy of the USSR, in the future, the Institute for Economics in Transition. He has a wonderful family, he is absolutely happy in his new marriage with Maria Strugatskaya, his first childhood love. His career was well-established, life went on as usual, no problems were foreseen for him ... Gaidar spent his summer vacation in 1991 with his family in Krasnovidovo, sitting down to write a long-planned book.

In the early morning of August 19, he was awakened by the news of a military coup - the arrest of Gorbachev, tanks in Moscow. Television broadcast the statement of the self-proclaimed GKChP. The true scale of events was then completely unclear.

Gaidar urgently set off for Moscow, thinking along the way about where the latest events might lead: “No 'enlightened dictatorship', no 'Russian Pinochet' is foreseen. Blood, as under Pinochet, of course, will be spilled, much more blood. It will just be all for nothing. The conspirators don't have a single sane idea of ​​what to do with the collapsing economy. In a year, two, four, no more, the tormented country will still turn on the difficult path to the market. But it will be a thousand times more difficult for her to follow this path. Yes, a year, two, well, even five. After all, history is a moment. And for those living today? And how many of them will step over these years?

At the institute, Gaidar canceled his own order to suspend the activities of the party organization and convened a party meeting. There were two issues on the agenda: about the withdrawal of the institute's employees from the party in connection with an attempted coup d'état supported by the Central Committee of the CPSU, and about the liquidation of the party organization in this regard. By evening, all the men of the Institute in full force gathered near the White House. There were many people around who came to defend their right to decide their own fate.

“Despite the fluttering tricolor Russian flags and the cheering crowds, there is a deep anxiety in the soul for the future of the country,” Yegor Gaidar recalled, “What happened is, without a doubt, a liberal, anti-communist revolution, provoked by the inflexibility and adventurism of the ruling elite. But after all, any revolution is always a terrible test and a huge risk for the country that is going through it.

On the same evening, Yegor Gaidar met the State Secretary of the RSFSR, Gennady Burbulis, one of the most influential figures in the circle of the future first President of Russia. This acquaintance abruptly changed the fate of both: it was Burbulis who soon convinced Yeltsin to entrust Gaidar's team with the development of a reform program. If earlier the idea of ​​having Gaidar take over the practical leadership of the economy was discussed only in jest in academic circles, now the situation has changed radically. By the beginning of the 1990s, Gaidar and his team turned out to be almost the only group of specialists who thoroughly studied the possibilities of implementing economic reforms and calculated the scenarios as deeply as possible. In an environment of time pressure and wild stress, they were able to propose a coherent concept of reforms and begin to act precisely, decisively and responsibly.

In October 1991, Russian President Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin decided to form a government of reformers based on Gaidar's team. At the Fifth Congress of People's Deputies of the RSFSR, Yeltsin delivered a keynote speech, the economic part of which was prepared by this team. The congress adopted a resolution approving the reform plan and entrusted Yeltsin with the duties of Chairman of the Government of the RSFSR. By presidential decree of November 6, 1991, Gaidar was appointed Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Economy and Finance, responsible for the entire financial and economic bloc.

“The message struck like thunder, at once separating everything that was in life before from the unknown future. From an adviser, I turned into a decision maker. And now the burden of responsibility for the country, for saving its dying economy, and therefore for the lives and destinies of millions of people, has fallen on my shoulders. ... Discourses about “soft”, “socially painless” reforms, under which it is possible to solve problems overnight so that everyone will feel good, and it will cost no one anything, reproaches addressed to us, which soon filled the pages of newspapers and sounded from scientific stands, did not even offend. The picture that opened up in detail confirmed the sad truth: there were no resources to mitigate the social costs of launching a new economic mechanism. Postponing economic liberalization until slow structural reforms can be pushed forward is not an option. Two or three more months of passivity, and we will have an economic and political catastrophe, the collapse of the country and a civil war. This is my firm conviction,” Gaidar wrote in his memoirs.

Literally after several days of work in the government, having familiarized himself with the real state of affairs in the economy, Gaidar came to an unequivocal conclusion: postponing price liberalization as the main tool for eliminating the threat of famine is absolutely impossible. Never after did he question this conclusion, until the very end he was firmly convinced that there was simply no other way out of the crisis. It is time for decisive action and dramatic change.

Despite opposition from political opponents, the government liberalized prices for all industrial and agricultural products from January 2, 1992. The subsequent Decree on Free Trade and the acceleration of the privatization of state-owned enterprises radically changed the situation: a free market economy began to take shape on the ruins of the Soviet command-and-control system. The first results were not long in coming: commodity stocks, which in January amounted to less than half of the level of December 1990, by June 1992 increased to 75% of this level, but prices simultaneously soared 3.5 times, and inflation, although slowed down , but was still in double digits per month. In an attempt to curb hyperinflation caused by the uncontrolled emission of the ruble in the last years of the USSR, the government took a number of unpopular measures, significantly reducing government spending, ending subsidies for retail prices, and introducing a value added tax. Although these measures made it possible to reduce the budget of the first quarter of 1992 without a deficit, they provoked an explosion of mass discontent among the population.

The VI Congress of People's Deputies, which was called by Ye. Gaidar "the first frontal attack on reforms", opened in Moscow on April 6, 1992. Opposition to the reforms, represented by the so-called “red directors”, who lost state financial support, lobbied for the adoption of an essentially anti-market Decree “On the course of economic reform in the Russian Federation”, which suggested a revision of the course chosen by the government. Gaidar in his memoirs describes the decisions taken by the Congress as follows: “Practically from the voice, without discussion, without analysis of material possibilities, resolutions are adopted by which the government is ordered to reduce taxes, increase subsidies, raise wages, and limit prices. A pointless set of mutually exclusive measures."

In response to the decision, the entire government submitted a letter of resignation. The congress backtracked and adopted a Declaration "On Support for Economic Reform in the Russian Federation", in which it supported the actions of the government, and proposed to carry out its resolution "taking into account the really developing economic and social conditions." However, the President and the government were also forced to compromise. The monetary policy of the state softened: emissions increased, government spending increased. This immediately caused an increase in inflation and a decrease in the level of trust in the government among the population. On December 1, 1992, the 7th Congress of People's Deputies opened.

A day later, Yegor Gaidar spoke at it as acting. Chairman of the Council of Ministers with a report on the progress of economic reform. In his speech, he summed up the main results of the government's work: the threat of famine was eliminated, deep structural transformations took place without serious social cataclysms, the commodity shortage was overcome, privatization and liberalization of foreign trade began. Speaking about the future, he warned the deputies against making a populist decision to increase budget spending - this would lead to another round of inflation and, in fact, cast doubt on all the results of the first stage of reforms.

The congress rejected Gaidar's candidacy presented by Yeltsin for the post of Chairman of the Council of Ministers. In his speech, the President sharply criticized the work of the congress, voiced the idea of ​​a nationwide referendum and called on his supporters to leave the meeting room. After lengthy consultations with the leadership of the Supreme Council, an agreement was reached to hold an all-Russian referendum on the main provisions of the Constitution. On December 11, 1992, the Congress adopted a corresponding resolution, and on December 14, after a multi-stage rating vote on five candidates for the post of Chairman of the Council of Ministers, introduced by President Yeltsin, the deputies supported the candidacy of V.S. Chernomyrdin. Yegor Gaidar was dismissed from all posts in the government.

“The feelings that I experienced immediately after the resignation were very complex, contradictory. This is both relief and bitterness. Relief from having a huge weight lifted from my shoulders. No more responsibility for everything that happens in the country. The alarm bell will no longer be heard: somewhere there was an explosion in the mine, somewhere the train crashed. There is no need to make decisions on which the fate of people depends, nor to refuse financial support to regions, large enterprises, scientific institutions that are in vital need of it. It is not for you to bear responsibility for all the imperfections of the young Russian democracy. Now, for all this, the head of others should hurt. And at the same time, a heavy feeling that you can no longer do what you consider necessary for the country, the development of events will proceed independently of you, you will observe mistakes that you are unable to correct from the outside. Anxiety - how many of these errors will there be? But will they cross out everything that with such difficulty, at such a price, but still managed to be done in Russia for the formation of a market economy?

The refusal of the Supreme Council to approve Yegor Gaidar as chairman of the Council of Ministers can be considered the beginning of an open stage of conflict between the two branches of power. Diametrically opposed views on the reform of the constitutional structure of Russia and the course of economic reforms, the actions of the Supreme Council aimed at delaying the adoption of critical decisions, the actual rejection of previously assumed obligations gave rise to an acute constitutional crisis that erupted in the country in the second half of 1993. The results of the Referendum on confidence in the President, which went down in history by the name of the campaign of the President's supporters "Yes-Yes-No-Yes", were ignored, de facto reforms began to curtail, work on the new Constitution was postponed...

In September 1993, almost a year after his high-profile resignation, Gaidar returned to the Government to the post of Deputy Prime Minister for Economics under Viktor Chernomyrdin. He immediately became convinced that to indulge the policy of the Supreme Council means in one fell swoop to cross out all the results of the reforms, to return back to the broken trough of the Soviet economy, and decided to support the President in every possible way.

The tragic events of October 1993, connected with a direct armed clash between supporters of the President and the Supreme Council, became the finale of a protracted constitutional crisis. Mass rallies quickly turned into organized anti-government demonstrations. The confusion and inaction of the forces of law and order led to the radicalization of the confrontation: a feeling of an inevitable catastrophe hung in the air.

In this situation, Gaidar acted decisively - for the only time in his life he decided to call on civilians to take to the streets and defend the power of their elected President. “I remember this crowd on Tverskaya, probably the most beautiful crowd in terms of the quality of people, faces and so on, which I have seen in my life. I took on a huge responsibility, I understood that these people could die, many of them could die, and I will be responsible for this, I will always be responsible. I realized that I could not afford not to do this ... "

After the rally in defense of the President and the government, which took place on the afternoon of October 3 near the Moscow City Council building on Tverskaya, the mood in the camp of Yeltsin's supporters changed significantly: confusion was over. The new Russian authorities took decisive action, which ended with the storming of the House of Soviets building using tanks and elite special forces units, the arrest of Khasbulatov, Rutskoi and other active supporters of the Supreme Council.

After October 1993, the liquidation of the system of Soviets began in the country, culminating in the adoption of a new Constitution of the Russian Federation at a referendum on December 12, 1993, which secured the establishment of a presidential form of government in Russia. In order to get out of the impasse of the crisis of dual power, the country had to go through bloody events, the degree of responsibility for which all branches of government still causes fierce debate.

In early 1994, E.T. Gaidar became a deputy of the State Duma of the first convocation. As one of the key figures in the camp of the reformers, Yegor Gaidar took an active part in party building, which provided political support for the course of reforms. He is one of the founders of the Russia's Choice electoral bloc, head of the largest parliamentary faction in the State Duma of the first convocation, chairman of the Democratic Choice of Russia party, co-chairman of the Union of Right Forces party, deputy of the Duma of the third convocation.

With the beginning of his deputy activity, Gaidar left his job in the government, but retained influence on subsequent cabinets of ministers and contributed to the adoption of all the landmark reform decisions in Russia's recent history. Gaidar invariably headed the Institute for the Economy in Transition, which he created, remaining the greatest authority in the field of transitology - the science of the socio-economic transformation of societies.

According to Anatoly Chubais, "whatever subsystem of the country's current economy, each of them was either written from beginning to end by Gaidar and his institute, or he participated to a large extent in their development."

One of the most important aspects of his life was the writing of books and articles in which Yegor Gaidar analyzed his own activities in detail and studied the patterns of transition processes in society and the formation of new social and economic institutions, the forms and specifics of the rapid growth of young economies...

Reflecting on his perception of time, Gaidar wrote: “Perhaps the main problem of adapting to work in government, especially in conditions of extreme crisis, is a radical change in the length of time. The scientist plans his work in terms of years, months, weeks. The EA measures time in hours and days. The head of government is forced to operate with time in seconds, at best - in minutes. To calmly think for a few hours, to consult unhurriedly is almost a luxury...”

Yegor Gaidar lived out his allotted time in the compressed time of epoch-making changes, of which he was destined to become an active participant and architect. He devoted himself without reserve to the cause, in the rightness of which he was firmly convinced until the very last day.

Yegor was born on March 19, 1956 in Moscow. Yegor Gaidar is the grandson of writers Arkady Gaidar and Pavel Bazhov. Higher education in the biography of Yegor Gaidar was received at Moscow State University, in 1978 he graduated from the Faculty of Economics. Two years later he graduated from graduate school. From 1983 to 1985, Gaidar worked as an expert in the State Commission on Economic Reforms. At this time, several articles by Gaidar on economic topics were published. He also took part in the development of perestroika reforms. Starting next year, he has been serving as a senior researcher at the Institute of Economics and Forecasting of the NTP.

The next stage of Gaidar's biography is associated with the Pravda newspaper and the Kommunist magazine, where he is in charge of the economic department. Political activity in the highest circles was started in 1991. Then Gaidar took the post of Deputy Chairman of the Government. An inseparable connection with the economic sciences can be traced in the following years of Yegor Gaidar's biography. From November 1991 to February 1992 he was the Minister of Economy and Finance of the RSFSR, and immediately after that - the Minister of Finance of the Russian Federation. Then he was Deputy (March-December 1992) and Acting (June-December 1992) Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation. From September 1993 to January 1994 he served as First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers.

He has been a member of the State Duma since 1995. During his life, Yegor Gaidar published more than a hundred articles on economics.

In 1998, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, with his work "Russia in the Collapse" rather sharply criticized the policies and reforms carried out by the government of Yeltsin, Chubais and Gaidar.

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Yegor Timurovich Gaidar was born on March 19, 1956 in Moscow into the family of a military correspondent for the Pravda newspaper, Rear Admiral Timur Gaidar. Both grandfathers of Yegor Gaidar - Arkady Gaidar and Pavel Bazhov - are famous writers.

In 1978, Gaidar graduated from the Faculty of Economics of Lomonosov Moscow State University, in November 1980 he completed his postgraduate studies at Moscow State University. In graduate school at Moscow State University, Gaidar studied under the guidance of Academician Stanislav Shatalin, who is considered not only his teacher, but also an ideological associate. After graduating from graduate school, Gaidar defended his Ph.D. thesis on estimated indicators in the economic accounting system of enterprises.

In 1980-1986, Gaidar worked at the All-Union Research Institute for System Research of the State Committee for Science and Technology and the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1986-1987, he was a leading researcher at the Institute of Economics and Forecasting Scientific and Technological Progress of the USSR Academy of Sciences, where he worked under the guidance of Academician Lev Abalkin, who later became Deputy Union Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov.

In 1982, Gaidar met Anatoly Chubais (later the main ideologist of privatization) when he was invited to St. Petersburg to speak at "Chubais" economic seminars. According to other sources, Gaidar met Chubais and Pyotr Aven (in the future - a big businessman) in 1983-1984, when he participated in the work of a state commission that studied the possibilities of economic transformations in the USSR.

In the summer of 1986, in Zmeina Gorka near Leningrad, Gaidar, Aven and Chubais organized their first open conference.

In 1987-1990, Gaidar served as editor of the economic department, and a member of the editorial board of the Kommunist magazine. In 1990, Gaidar was the editor of the economics department of the Pravda newspaper.

In 1990-1991, Gaidar headed the Institute for Economic Policy at the USSR Academy of National Economy, where he defended his doctoral dissertation.

On August 19, 1991, after the start of the GKChP coup, Gaidar announced his withdrawal from the CPSU and joined the defenders of the White House. During the August events, Gaidar met with the State Secretary of the Russian Federation Gennady Burbulis.

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In September, Gaidar headed the working group of economists created by Burbulis and Alexei Golovkov at the State Council of the Russian Federation. In October 1991, Gaidar was appointed Deputy Chairman of the Government of the RSFSR for Economic Policy, Minister of Economy and Finance of the RSFSR. Gaidar's name is associated with such events in Russian history as the famous "shock therapy" and price liberalization. He took this post during the collapse of the Soviet Union, when the laws ceased to operate, instructions - to be executed, power structures - to function. The Soviet system of control over foreign economic activity did not work, customs ceased to function. According to Gaidar himself, in a situation where there were no reserves left - neither budgetary nor foreign exchange, the only way out was to unfreeze prices.

In 1992, Gaidar became acting chairman of the government of the Russian Federation. As head of the "government of reformers," Gaidar took an active part in creating the privatization program and putting it into practice.

In 1992-1993, Gaidar served as director of the Institute for Economic Problems in Transition and was an adviser to the President of the Russian Federation on economic policy issues. In September 1993, Gaidar became the first deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers - the government of the Russian Federation.

On October 3-4, 1993, during the constitutional crisis in Moscow, Gaidar called on the people to take to the streets and fight for the new regime to the end.

From 1994 to December 1995, Gaidar was a deputy of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, chairman of the Russia's Choice faction.

In June 1994, Gaidar became chairman of the Democratic Choice of Russia party (he remained the leader of the party until May 2001). Colleagues in the FER gave him a playful nickname - "Iron Winnie the Pooh" - for his characteristic appearance, unbending character and increased efficiency.

In December 1998, the Russian liberal democrats united in the Right Cause public bloc, whose leadership included Gaidar, Chubais, Boris Nemtsov, Boris Fedorov, and Irina Khakamada. On August 24, Sergei Kiriyenko, Nemtsov and Khakamada announced the creation of an electoral bloc called the Union of Right Forces (SPS). In the 1999 parliamentary elections, Gaidar, on the list of the Union of Right Forces, became a member of the State Duma of the third convocation. The founding congress of the SPS party took place on May 26, 2001, and Gaidar became one of its co-chairs. After the defeat of the Union of Right Forces in the elections in December 2003, Gaidar left the leadership of the party and was no longer included in the new composition of the presidium of the political council of the Union of Right Forces, elected in February 2004 - according to Leonid Gozman, the party's curator for ideology, "Gaidar and Nemtsov remain leaders, not holding formal posts.

As of 2006, Gaidar is the director of the Institute for the Economy in Transition, an honorary professor at the University of California, a member of the editorial board of the Vestnik Evropy magazine, and a member of the advisory board of the Acta Oeconomica magazine.

On November 24, 2006, while attending a conference in Ireland, Gaidar suddenly felt ill and was taken to the hospital with signs of acute poisoning. Journalists noted that this happened the day after Alexander Litvinenko, a former FSB officer, a sharp critic of the Kremlin's policy and personally President Vladimir Putin, died in a London hospital from poisoning with radioactive polonium. However, Gaidar managed to recover and the next day he flew to Moscow, where he continued his treatment. Gaidar declined to comment on suggestions that he was deliberately poisoned.

The media wrote that Gaidar is a man of radical right-wing views in politics and economics. He is the author of the monographs "Economic Reforms and Hierarchical Structures", "State and Evolution", "Anomalies of Economic Growth", "Days of Defeats and Victories", Long Time".

Gaidar speaks English, Serbo-Croatian and Spanish. He is a good chess player, played football.

As of 1999, Gaidar was married for the second time to the daughter of the writer Arkady Natanovich Strugatsky, Marianna, whom he met at school. He has three sons - Peter from his first marriage to Irina Smirnova and Ivan and Pavel from his second (Ivan is Marianna's son from her first marriage). In addition, Gaidar has a daughter, Maria, who was born in 1982, when Gaidar and Smirnova were about to divorce. After the divorce, Peter began to live with his father and his parents, while Maria stayed with her mother and bore her surname for a long time. Only in 2004 did Gaidar acknowledge his paternity, and she took his last name. Currently, Maria Gaidar is an employee of the Institute for the Economy in Transition and the leader of the youth movement "Democratic Alternative" - ​​"Yes!".