Conclusion

In 2012, the Russian journalist Valerii Paniushkin published a book entitled The Revolt of the Consumers (Vosstanie potrebitelei). He tells a story of a group of young economists, lawyers and other enthusiasts who, inspired by perestroika and the worsening economic problems in Gorbachev's Soviet Union, took up the defence of consumer rights. The result was the Confederation of Consumer Societies (CCS), which outlived the Soviet Union and took its legal battles, mystery shopper inspections and media campaigns into the post-Soviet 1990s. Its main task was to get the Russian consumer to know and demand her rights, and to get the state, the courts and the emerging private market to learn to observe those rights. The story is important, Paniushkin believes, because it casts the events of the late 1980s and early 1990s in a different light: the changes that swept the Soviet colossus out of existence were part of a consumer revolution rather than a democratic one. The first major victory was scored in spring 1991, when the Soviet parliament adopted a new law for consumer rights protection drafted with the help of the above enthusiasts. By the end of the 1990s, thanks largely to their efforts, Russia had a functioning consumer market, and now contemporary Russians are competent and confident consumers of just about everything, except the state itself; here, the book suggests, they still have much to learn. ¹