Anatoly Chubais
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Anatoly Borisovich Chubais
(b. 1955), reform economist and official in Yeltsin government.
Anatoly Borisovich Chubais was born in 1955. In 1977 he graduated from an engineering-economic institute in Leningrad, and in 1983 he defended a thesis on management problems. His early career was linked to the democratic movement in Leningrad. Following the failed coup in August 1991 (against Mikhail Gorbachev), he resigned his membership in the Communist Party.
As one of the most prominent of Russia's "young reform economists," in November 1991 he was appointed to serve as chairman of the Russian State Property Committee. From that post he would lead and influence the Russian program of mass privatization, personally favoring the use of special privatization vouchers and privatization via auctions. In 1993 he was also elected to the Russian Duma, representing the liberal party Russia's Choice.
Following a series of scandals in relation to various privatization deals, in January 1996 Chubais was fired from his post. A month later, however, he returned to the national stage to serve as campaign manager for Boris Yeltsin's reelection campaign. From there he proceeded to the influential post of head of the presidential administration.
In March 1997 Chubais capped his political career by being appointed first deputy prime minister in charge of the economy, a post that he would hold until March 1998, when Yeltsin chose to dismiss the entire government.
Throughout his various posts in government, Chubais became known as one of the most competent but also one of the most controversial of the reformers. While his popularity in Western business and policy circles seemed to guarantee appointments to prominent posts, his standing with the general population and with the political opposition inside his own country was very poor.
In April 1998 Chubais was appointed to serve as chief executive officer of the Russian power giant Unified Energy Systems (UES). Like his role in government, his way of running UES was surrounded by controversy, earning him much praise but also much criticism.
Bibliography
Aslund, Anders. (1995). How Russia Became a Market Economy. Washington, DC: Brookings.
Wedel, Janine R. (1998). Collision and Collusion. New York: St. Martin's.
—STEFAN HEDLUND
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Anatoly Chubais
| Anatoly Chubais | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| First Deputy Prime Minister of Russia | |
| In office 17 March 1997 – 23 March 1998 |
|
| Prime Minister | Viktor Chernomyrdin |
| In office 5 November 1994 – 16 January 1996 |
|
| Prime Minister | Viktor Chernomyrdin |
| Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation | |
| In office 1 June 1992 – 5 November 1994 |
|
| President | Boris Yeltsin |
| Prime Minister | Boris Yeltsin Yegor Gaidar (acting) Viktor Chernomyrdin |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Anatoly Borisovich Chubais June 16, 1955 Borisov, Byelorussian SSR, Soviet Union |
| Nationality | Russian |
| Political party | Independent |
| Other political affiliations |
Communist Party of the Soviet Union Union of Rightist Forces |
| Signature |  |
Anatoly Borisovich Chubais (Russian: Анато́лий Бори́сович Чуба́йс; born June 16, 1955) is a Russian politician and business manager who was responsible for privatization in Russia as an influential member of Boris Yeltsin's administration.[1] From 1998 to 2008 he was the head of the state owned electrical power monopoly RAO UES. The 2004 survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers and Financial Times named him the world's 54th most respected business leader.[2] Currently he is the head of the Russian Nanotechnology Corporation (since 22 September 2008)[3] and a member of the Advisory Council for JPMorgan Chase (since 26 September 2008).[4]
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Early life
Chubais was born on June 16, 1955 in the town of Borisov, then part of the Soviet Union. His father Boris Matveyevich Chubais, a retired colonel, veteran of the World War II worked as a lecturer of Philosophy and Marxist Theory[5] and Scientific Communism. His mother, Raisa Efimovna Sagal, was a university-educated economist but never had a job as she mostly lived at military bases with her husband.[6] Instead she stayed home caring for her children and never putting her profession to use.[7] Anatoly Chubais has an older brother Igor Chubais (born 1947), who is also an economist.[6]
In 1977, Chubais graduated from the Leningrad Economic Engineering Institute and joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He continued to work at Leningrad Economic Engineering Institute. While attending Leningrad, Chubias started a club called Reforma, which helped turn Leningrad into a model of reform that helped construct platforms for both local and national elections. Reforma also helped with drafting legislation, which eventually helped lead its government.[8] In 1982 he became an Associate Professor (доцент) there. In 1983 he got his Candidate of Sciences (Ph.D.) degree in economics for the dissertation "Исследование и разработка методов планирования совершенствования управления в отраслевых научно-технических организациях" (Research and development of methods for planning improvement of management in the industrial research and development organizations).[6]
Dissident economist
In the 1980s Chubais became a leader of an informal circle of market-oriented economists. In 1982 Chubais together with economists Yury Yarmagayev and Grigory Glazkov published an article "Вопросы расширения хозяйственной самостоятельности предприятий в условиях научно-технического прогресса" (Questions of extending of business autonomy of enterprises in the conditions of the progress in science and technology) there they argued that no amount of planning can predict the paying demand. In 1982 Chubais became acquainted with future Prime Minister of Russia Yegor Gaidar who was invited to Chubais seminars.[6]
In 1987 Chubais became the organizer of Leningrad club Perestroyka with the goal to promote the democratic ideas among intelligentsia. Among the people involved was the founder of Moscow "Perestroyka" and "Perestroyka-88" clubs, Igor Chubais (Anatoly's brother), future Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Kudrin, future Chubais associates Pyotr Mostovoy, Alexander Kazakov, future President of Saint Petersburg bank Vladimir Kogan, future minister Ilya Yuzhanov, and future assassinated Deputy Governor of Saint Petersburg Mikhail Manevich.[6]
For financing their seminars, dissident economists organized a tulip farm. In the four days before the International Women's Day (March 8) they managed to get income equivalent to the price of several Lada cars. The tulip money was used to finance the elections of Anatoly Sobchak, Yury Boldyrev and many other democratic candidates. As a result, 2/3 of the deputies winning the partially free[citation needed] 1990 elections to Leningrad Soviet were from the opposition. Chubais himself later stated that he personally did not participate in growing or selling of the flowers.[6]
In the end of 1980 economist Vitaly Nayshul proposed to use voucher privatization for the transformation to market economy in Soviet Union. The scheme was strongly criticized by Chubais as inevitably producing gross unfairness and social tensions. Ironically, Chubais later became the leader of implementation of such a scheme.[6]
Privatization Chief
In 1990, after Anatoly Sobchak being elected as the Chairman of Leningrad Soviet, Chubais became his deputy. He was trying to implement Sobchak's idea of creating a Free Economic Zone in Leningrad. In 1991 Chubais refused to accept the position of the Chairman of Leningrad Ispolkom and became an advisor to Anatoly Sobchak's Mayoral Administration in St Petersburg. Simultaneously he worked as the president of newly created Wassily Leontief Center for research in economics.
In November 1991 Chubais became a minister in the Yeltsin Cabinet handling the portfolio of the Chief of Rosimushchestvo (Committee on the State Properties) that had the task of the Privatization in Russia.[6]
Chubais originally advocated quick privatization for money, similar to the model used for Privatization in Hungary but that model was unacceptable for the Congress of People's Deputies of Russia. Eventually a compromise form of a voucher privatization similar to used in Czech Republic was proposed and adopted on 11 June 1991 by the Supreme Soviet of Russia. The program was started by the decree of President Boris Yeltsin on 19 August 1991.[6]
Stolichny Bank
In his relatively short career in government, he'd already racked up a list of improprieties even Marion Barry would envy. Earlier that summer [of 1997], Chubais had admitted to receiving a $3 million interest-free loan from Stolichny Bank, apparently in exchange for Stolichny's victory in the auction of AgPromBank . . . which controlled the second-largest banking network in Russia. He had also been caught failing to pay taxes the year before. Furthermore, the income he did later report was due to investments through a shady investment company called Montes Auri which was raided the same day Kazakov was fired, using money from the Stolichny loan.
--Matt Taibbi, The eXile: Sex, Drugs, and Libel in the New Russia, Grove Press, New York, NY (2000)
Writer's Union
What happened was that Chubais and a team of his closest advisers all got caught in what appeared to be a bribery scam. The Deputy Prime Minister admitted . . . to having accepted a $90,000 book advance . . . the advance came from "Segodnya" publishers, a company which was controlled by Oneximbank, the same bank which had profited enormously from a series of auctions over the past two years that Chubais played a key part in. Chubais admitted to receiving his advance, all but conceding that he had been caught in a blatant conflict of interest.
--Matt Taibbi, The eXile: Sex, Drugs, and Libel in the New Russia, Grove Press, New York, NY (2000)
Personal life
Chubais is married to Maria, his second wife. She is also an economist. Chubais has two children from his first marriage, a son, Aleksey and a daughter, Olga.[7]
From July 15, 1996 – March 7, 1997, Chubais was the Chief of the Russian presidential administration. It is during his term that this office became very influential.
On March 17, 2005, he survived an assassination attempt. Vladimir Kvachkov was charged in the attempt, but was acquitted by a jury. Kvachkov's case is back in court as of September 2008.
In 2008, Chubais was commemorated with a Presidential Commendation for helping draft part of the Russian Constitution, and overall contributions to democracy in Russia.[7]
Involvement in political parties
Most recently, Chubais served as one of the co-leaders of the Union of Rightist Forces, which controlled 29 seats in the Russian Parliament from 1999 until 2003. On January 24, 2003 he resigned as co-chairman of the Union of Rightist Forces party. In the late 1990s, he also won a seat in the Russian Parliament as a candidate of the Russia's Choice party.
References
- ^ Profile: Anatoly Chubais, by BBC News
- ^ Chubais, Kukes Are Respected
- ^ Russian reformer Chubais becomes Rosnanotech head Reuters 22 September 2008
- ^ J.P. Morgan appoints Anatoly Chubais to advisory council
- ^ Russiapedia. 2011.http://russiapedia.rt.com/prominent-russians/politics-and-society/anatoly-chubais
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Чубайс, Анатолий Collection of materials at Lenta.ru (Russian)
- ^ a b c Russiapedia. 2011. http://russiapedia.rt.com/prominent-russians/politics-and-society/anatoly-chubais
- ^ Janine R. Wedel. 2009. "Shadow Elite", Basic Books, Page 16.
External links
 |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Anatoly Chubais |
- Commanding Heights : Anatoly Chubais on PBS
- Father to the Oligarchs by Arkady Ostrovsky, Financial Times, November 13, 2004
- Rusnet Encyclopedia
- Russia Profile Who's Who
- Russia's Regent by Paul Quinn-Judge, Time, December 9, 1996.
| Preceded by Mikhail Maley |
Head of the Russian State Property Committee November 10, 1991, – November 5, 1994 |
Succeeded by Vladimir Polevanov |
| Preceded by Nikolay Yegorov |
Chief of the Russian presidential administration July 15, 1996, – March 7, 1997 |
Succeeded by Valentin Yumashev |
| Preceded by Boris Brevnov |
Chairman of RAO UES 30 April 1998 - 1 July 2008 |
Succeeded by Company ceased to exist |
| Preceded by Leonid Melamed |
Director General of Russian Nanotechnology Corporation since 22 September 2008 |
Succeeded by Incumbent |
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Gale Encyclopedia of Russian History
Encyclopedia of Russian History. Copyright © 2004 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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