Copyright 1998 ABC-CLIO, Inc.  
Kaleidoscope

COUNTRY: Russia

PERSON: Anatoly Chubais

HEADLINE: Biographies

 


The former first deputy chairperson in charge of privatization, Anatoly Chubais was appointed the chief of President Boris Yeltsin's personal staff in July 1996. One of the last remaining free-market reformers in the Russian government, Chubais took charge of the Kremlin's everyday affairs. In March 1997, he became a first deputy prime minister with responsibility for economic policy.  


Anatoly Borisovich Chubais was born in 1955 and educated at the Leningrad Institute of Technology and Engineering. He was an engineer and the assistant chairperson of the city's Insitute of Economics and Engineering from 1977 to 1982. That year he became a member of the Leningrad Municipal Council and was made a first deputy chair of the legislature in early 1991. At the end of the year he accepted an appointment in Moscow as the minister of state property and supervised the country's nascent campaign of privatization. In 1994 he assumed control of the economy ministry and was made a first deputy prime minister when fellow reformer Aleksandr Shokhin resigned in protest at a wave of appointments of conservative ministers in a government reshuffle.  


Chubais' November 1994 appointment to a Cabinet-level position in the Russian government capped a turbulent year for Russia's free-market reformers that saw the resignation at the first of the year of key reformer Yegor Gaidar. In many ways a mentor to Chubais, Gaidar left the government in frustration at a lack of will at the highest levels to carry out capitalist reforms. With President Boris Yeltsin appointing hard-liners over liberals and with the Chechen war posing an added burden to the budget, Chubais faced even greater frustrations than his predecessor. Western lending institutions put their confidence in Chubais to rectify a host of entrenched problems in the Russian economy, including poor tax collecting practices, inflation-creating subsidies to aging state-owned industries, and protectionist trade polices. In January 1996 Chubais was sacked as privatization chief and replaced by Soviet-era conservative Vladimir Kadannikov. A prominent member of Yeltsin's successful reelection campaign, Chubais in July 1996 was reappointed to a top Kremlin post as chief of staff. He was promoted to first deputy prime minister in March 1997.  


[Source: International Who's Who; Newsweek]

LOAD-DATE: February 18, 1998


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