ABSTRACT
As I have shown in the last chapter, between 1990 and 1992 in Russian economic science there was a general striving toward a return to the international scientific community. Indeed, the years between 1992 and 1995 saw a rapidly increasing number of Russian editions of Western, mainly American, economic textbooks 1 and the exploration of a range of different subjects drawn from Western literature. However, the liberal heyday proved to be rather short-lived. 2 By 1993 it was obvious that Russia was in a deep transitional crisis. A key characteristic of a utopian ideology is its being related to the future, so for it to be sustained “it is of crucial importance that reality should at least develop in the right direction” (Gerner and Hedlund 1989: 20). Once it turned out that the road to recovery was much more painful and tedious than predicted not only by the Russian, but also by the Western neo-liberal experts, the excitement for liberal ideas gave way to a re-consideration of Russian reality. In line with this, in his speech at the 7th Congress of the People’s Deputies, held in December 1992, President El’tsin announced “that the time has come for a reversal of our whole policy … with the face to Russia, to her traditions, to her very history, presence and future” (cited in Kul’kov 1993: 15).
