A. V. Kiva's monograph examines the experience of Russian reforms in the last two decades in comparison with the experience of Western and Eastern countries. Special attention is paid to comparing the results of Russian reforms at the present stage with the experience of successful development in the last two or three decades of the XX century. China, India, and the newly industrialized countries of Asia.

The book is written vividly, boldly, and is read with interest. The author is known not only as a scientist, but also as a highly sought-after publicist, published in many newspapers, magazines and electronic media. He takes a critical approach to assessing the experience of Russian reforms, which indicates a certain evolution of his own views in comparison with the first half of the 1990s. Being a well-known political scientist, participating in the work of various foundations and forums, A. V. Kiva was personally acquainted with some of the "foremen of perestroika" and "architects of market reforms", including M. S. Gorbachev, and in the book tells about his conversations with them.

About 20 years have passed since the beginning of Gorbachev's perestroika, 15 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the beginning of the shock liberalization of the economy. This is a period of summing up some results. Many things are more prominent in comparison with the experience of other countries.

In the first section of the monograph, the author raises the question of whether the collapse of the USSR was inevitable, and analyzes in detail "the calculations and miscalculations of Soviet 'reformers' and Russian 'democrats '" (p.26). It shows that along with the objective reasons for the collapse of the USSR - first of all, the low level of labor productivity in comparison with developed capitalist countries, the deformed structure of production, in which the share of production of consumer goods was too low - subjective factors played an important role in it - the stagnation of the Soviet ruling elite, the closeness of Soviet society.

Speaking about relations in the Soviet Union between the center and the suburbs, A. V. Kiva raises the question of whether the USSR was a real colonial empire, which is interesting for studying East-West relations in general. The answer is rather negative. After 1917, huge material and human resources from the relatively developed central regions of the country were directed to the least developed marginal regions (national republics). "The" pulling up" of previously backward regions to the level of the central regions of the" metropolis " has led to the fact that the standard of living, for example, in the Non-Black Earth regions, has become lower than in a number of "backward" regions. This is hardly possible in the classical metropolis - colony relationship" (p. 43). Mixed marriages between representatives of almost all the peoples who inhabited the country accounted for more than one-third.

Moscow: IV RAS Publ., 2006, 368 p.

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The author examines the reasons for a certain idealization of the intellectual elite and mass consciousness of the West, when at the dawn of reforms everyone hoped that " abroad will help us!". According to A.V. Kiva, for Russia (in the text, for some reason, with a small letter) As a Eurasian country, the experience of both the West and the East is useful. It would be particularly useful to draw on the experience of Russia's eastern neighbor, China, and other successful Asian countries.

The author analyzes in detail the experience of reforms in China. He compares the "Chinese way" with the NEP, which V. I. Lenin began to implement in Soviet Russia. Drawing on the works of Russian Sinologists L. P. Delyusin, A. V. Meliksetov and others, he examines various stages in the formation of a new economic policy in China, starting with the decisions of the 3rd plenum of the CPC Central Committee of the 11th convocation (1978). Just three or four years after the adoption of these decisions, Chinese farmers, having received land that was formally owned by communes, increased agricultural production several times. In the face of growing property differentiation, which is inevitable in the course of market reforms (but not necessarily unlimited, as in some countries), Deng Xiaoping in 1983 put forward the thesis of the need to "encourage some people to achieve prosperity before others" (p. 73). At the same time, the increased inequality in income distribution was not as glaring in China as in Russia. The results of the reforms are indicated by the following examples: There is good evidence that during the reform period, China's share of GDP per capita rose from 5% of the US level to 15%, while Russia, on the contrary, fell from 30% to 15% in the 1990s (p.206).

The author points out that despite the unique experience of the People's Republic of China, where the implementation of market reforms took place without officially abandoning the construction of socialism, there are similarities between the "Chinese model" and the" East Asian model": an authoritarian regime, an active role of the state in the development of the economy, a high level of savings and investment, a policy of protectionism in relation to having gained more competitiveness in the global market.

China has used its comparative advantages to reform: huge and cheap labor resources, centuries-old skills in craft and trade. In Russia, of all the existing powerful development factors, only one is fully involved - natural resources, and even then according to the colonial model, i.e. through the export of raw materials and products of its primary processing. A special role was played in the Chinese reforms by the huge influx of capital from overseas Chinese Huaqiao and Tongbao. It was foreign Chinese who played a leading role in moving labor-intensive, export-oriented manufacturing industries to China, and it was the export of finished products from China, which turned into a "world workshop" and literally flooded the whole world with its industrial goods, that became the engine of economic growth. Once again, the comparison suggests itself with Russia, from which, according to estimates given by A.V. Kiva, the "new Russians" exported from 300 to 500 billion dollars during the years of liberal reforms.

It is interesting to consider in the book the question of whether N. S. Khrushchev could have implemented reforms like the Chinese ones. But during his reign, the potential of socialism did not seem to have been exhausted. By the way, there have also been some very impressive successes, particularly in space exploration. History, as we know, does not know the subjunctive mood. But it is not necessary to implement reforms completely following someone else's model. The main thing is to put national priorities at the forefront, not the goals of personal enrichment; methods and directions of reforms should be built taking into account national specifics and comparative advantages. When compared with the experience of the PRC, one can clearly see how disastrous the policy of E. Gaidar and the "young reformers" turned out to be for Russia in the 1990s-the rejection of the regulatory role of the national state in the economy, the liberalization of the economy at any cost in order to create a class of new owners of unearned capital.

You can argue with A.V. Kiva, who often says that Russia has adopted the American model. In the United States itself, although there were cases of criminal origin of capital, "criminal capitalism" was by no means the main road of development. More precisely, it should be said - not the American model, but the American recipe for external use in export execution, based on the so - called Washington Consensus, recommendations for developing countries when providing them with assistance from the International Monetary Fund-the World Bank. Russia has been a major borrower of these international financial institutions, although no large-scale assistance has been reported.-

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There was no question of a similar kind of aid under the "Marshall Plan" to Western Europe or to South Korea and Taiwan. These recommendations of the IMF-WB are limited to limiting the role of the state in every possible way, cutting public spending (including on social needs), closing public sector enterprises, liberalizing the economy, and refusing to protect the national uncompetitive industry. The harmful effects of these recommendations have been felt in many developing countries, and in some of them they have even led to popular protests.

A.V. Kiva talks about the experience of Franklin Roosevelt and how America could get out of the "Great Depression" by increasing government spending. The state also played an active role in the reconstruction of post-war Western Europe, which also received enormous funds under the "Marshall Plan". Economic liberalization was carried out only as the economic power of Western European countries increased. However, even today, if the interests of national producers are affected, developed countries, primarily the United States, often resort to protectionist measures.

Along with the experience of the People's Republic of China, A.V. Kiva also considers the experience of India, where public sector enterprises were reformed, the credit and financial system was liberalized, and the foreign capital admission regime was implemented. He notes that perhaps the most valuable thing for Russia would be the experience of India in the field of high technologies, which in 2004 exported software worth $ 12.5 billion, despite the fact that its annual growth in foreign sales is 30%. "Perhaps nothing shows the liberals' disastrous economic policy for Russia more clearly than their attitude to the development of high technologies. Isn't it a paradox that a country that helped create the foundations of industry and a cadre of specialists for the former British colony (India), after 20 years of "reforms", is forced to turn to it for experience?" (p.219). In December 2004, during his visit to India, Vladimir Putin visited the high-tech center in Bangalore. What he saw there made a strong impression on him.

It is also interesting to analyze the roots of the negative attitude of recent Russian reformers to the experience of Eastern countries. The author tells about a wave of publications (including articles by Boris Nemtsov, E. Gaidar, and V. Mau) that gloated about the collapse of the "East Asian tigers" development model in 1997 during the Asian crisis, most of which, I note, soon recovered from the negative consequences of the crisis. At the same time, some of the affected Asian countries, such as Malaysia, did not follow the recommendations of the IMF-WB. Meanwhile, the Russian crisis of 1998 was just around the corner. Of course, the unwillingness to follow Asian models was due to the fact that the demonstration effect of a high standard of living in our country (including in the mass consciousness) is associated with Western countries, and not with China or India. But, as A.V. Kiva emphasizes, the main thing in Russia's unwillingness to use the experience of the reforms of the PRC, India, and the" East Asian tigers " was connected with the real and quite material interests of the groups in power.

The author seeks to analyze in detail "the reasons for the development of post-Soviet Russia in the worst-case scenario": These are not only objective difficulties, but also "the weakness of the reformers 'cadre" (p. 121), and, I would add, their complete disregard for the interests of the broad masses of society, not of the narrow, enriching elite. The book shows various ways and stages of robbing the people: voucher privatization, financial pyramids that were created with the clear connivance of the authorities (in Albania, for example, the loss of savings in financial pyramids by the population resulted in a civil war and led to the overthrow of the then ruling regime), fake mortgage auctions, the activities of "authorized banks" that scrolled budget money For example, providing "their own people" with interest-free loans, transferring funds to offshore zones, and the enormous scale of capital flight abroad at a time when the country is increasingly bogged down in external debts.

To the above, one could add the first steps of shock liberalization, which was carried out in the worst - case scenario, or rather, in a combination of two options-simultaneous price liberalization (the Polish version) and uncontrolled import of goods (the East German version). This combination of low prices and uncontrolled imports for domestic enterprises (and for the majority of the population) turned out to be something like taking a laxative and sleeping pills at the same time. A huge increase in prices caused a drop in the purchasing power of the population, a reduction in the capacity of the domestic market. The savings of the population were lost even before the scams of Chara-bank and MMM.

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In a separate section of the monograph, entitled "What we Built: a View from the outside and from within", the author suggests that the lack of a strategy at the transition stage led to the criminal revolution and the formation of "wild capitalism". It can be added that, without using the Chinese and Indian models of reform, Russia has instead repeated some aspects of the experience of other Afro-Asian countries. In particular, such an experience, when a significant part of Western aid was used to pay for the services of Western advisers who gave recommendations on economic strategy (now that such outstanding Orientalist economists as G. K. Shirokov and V. A. Yashkin have recently left us, it can be stated that their experience and knowledge of economics, which could have been used by the United States, they may have been used to draw up such recommendations, but remained unclaimed in the highest echelons of power). Such "experience" as direct theft of economic aid was also used. The experience of the oligarchic capitalism of the Philippines during the reign of Ferdinand Marcos was also repeated - "crony capitalism", which we usually translate as" crony capitalism", but could also be translated as" thug capitalism "(in the sense of" thug "and in the sense of"crime").

The"young reformers" -Democrats were eager to repeat the experience of dictator Pinochet, or the experience of" currency regulation pegged to the dollar "("currency board"), the results of which in Argentina itself soon after led to mass protests of the population and the complete collapse of the country's financial system.

Analyzing "what we have built", the author again turns to Oriental studies, using the tools developed by Russian scientists, in particular, the theory of multi-layered A. I. Levkovsky, although he notes that it is not quite suitable for analyzing Russian realities. At the same time, in many of its parameters of socio-economic structure, Russia began to acquire similarities with developing countries, and after the start of "shock therapy", incredible metamorphoses began to occur in it of a regressive rather than progressive nature, for example, an increase in the importance of the natural way of life, natural relations. The scheme of the ways listed by A.V. Kiva really differs from the scheme of the ways that are present in Asian countries. Some of these structures (such as corrupt capitalism, the structure of foreign speculative capital, or the structure of criminal capital) can be classified as classical structures only by a stretch, but the author clearly shows these specific phenomena using the category "structure".

A. V. Kiva's book is not free from shortcomings. It would be possible to clarify some concepts. For example, not the unified social tax in Russia is 13% (p. 180), but the income tax is uniform for all - poor and rich (the adoption of such a tax is "due" to some recognized democrats). Speaking about the experience of Eastern countries, it would be possible to use foreign sources more widely.

The book also makes you think about personal results. Representatives of the old "middle class", in particular scientists, were put in the same conditions during the shock liberalization as the frog in the famous parable: if it manages to knock the butter out of the cream and swim up-well, if it fails - its problems. Orientalists, as a social and professional group included in the category of state employees, have fully experienced the consequences of liberal reforms.

In general, the comparative study of A. V. Kiva is interesting and deserves to be read by both Orientalists and non-Orientalists. The criticism in A. V. Kiva's book is constructive in nature, it is intended to help first to understand, and then to work out ways to correct the negative consequences of the Russian reforms of the 1990s, taking into account the experience of the countries of the East and West.

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