ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the early career of Yabloko’s leader, Grigorii Yavlinskii; the roots of the party; and the circumstances in which the Yavlinskii-Boldyrev-Lukin bloc was formed. The economic liberalism of the reform programme was, however, tempered by a significant social content, pointing to the social-liberal orientation of Yavlinskii and Yabloko. The Centre for Economic and Political Research to which Yavlinskii referred played a greater role than originally envisaged, becoming his and Yabloko’s organisational and ideological base. As the chronological scope of the chapter takes only as far as the preparations for the 1993 parliamentary elections it is difficult to draw many conclusions about the nature of the Yavlinskii-Boldyrev-Lukin bloc itself. There are sufficient clues, however, in Yabloko’s pre-history to indicate the ideological direction Yavlinskii’s party was to take. A summary of Yavlinskii’s political background points to the ideological orientation his party would adopt.
