Letters

National Interest, The, Fall, 2000

As analysts sort through this policy rubble, three points of view have emerged. The first holds that for social, cultural and historical reasons, the so-called shock therapy was inappropriate from the start as the centerpiece of the Russian economy. The second is that, whatever their theoretical merit, these policies foundered because they relied on too narrow a political base, and neglected the need to strengthen property rights and develop the rule of law. A third view, apparently still believed by many members of the Clinton administration, posits that the reforms would have been more successful had "shock therapy" really been tried--that is, had the Russian government the "political will" to implement properly what the United States and international lending institutions wanted it to do. They were also sidetracked, so the argument goes, because of external factors such as the Asian financial crisis. To the latter explanation, Sachs now offers a variant that allows him to defend his policy prescriptions, while distancing himself from what happened: had the U.S. offered more assistance to Russia during the window of opportunity in the early 1990s (that is, when he was closely involved), Russia's transformation would have been far smoother.

Sachs and Aslund are wrong, of course. The United States never had the ability to shape the scope and pace of Russian reforms in any major way. The fate of post-Soviet Russia has indeed always been--in the U.S. administration's tired cliche--for the Russian people to decide. Washington could only be a constructive player at the margins.

Despite all the ink spilled on these issues, there remain, surprisingly, many unanswered questions. What was the role of Larry Summers, one of the intellectual godfathers of "shock therapy", in designing and implementing U.S. policy? His key role has barely been raised in the debate. Which Western companies profited from U.S. assistance? Why hasn't the U.S. government more aggressively pursued the investigation into the Bank of New York scandal, which was a by-product of its policies? Finally, in 1996 the United States turned a blind eye as its friends in Moscow bent the rules to re-elect Boris Yeltsin. As odious a Russian president as Gennady Zyuganov would have been had he been elected, are the policies of Vladimir Putin, Yeltsin's hand-picked successor, now significantly better?

DONALD N. JENSEN Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Prague

When was Anders Aslund last in Belarus? Or in saying that its citizens "suffer under a frightful dictatorship in a Soviet theme park" is he just citing conventional wisdom?

True, since becoming independent in 1991 the country has conspicuously shunned the kind of "shock therapy" approach to change recommended by Aslund (and accepted in a certain sense in Russia). As a result, Minsk may lack the veneer of Western shops and cars casual visitors make so much of in Moscow. But it has also avoided the widespread pauperization, decrease in life expectancy and violent racketeering that have been the main outcome of the so-called radical economic reforms endured by ordinary Russians.