POST-SOVIET LIBERAL POLITICIANS: POLITICAL EXPEDIENCY OR MORAL IMPERATIVE?

Abstract

The article presents the analysis of the Russian liberals’ key points of view on determining the balance of political interest and moral imperative in the political process of the post-Soviet Russia. The main directions represented by the views of E.T. Gaidar, A.B. Chubais, B.E. Nemtsov and G.A. Yavlinsky are covered. It is concluded that the “instrumentalist” approach dominated in the 1990s was focused on the fact that the implementation of liberal reforms in the post-Soviet Russia was possible only on the basis of rejecting the moral criteria in politics for the sake of strict adherence to the chosen course. The refusal of Russian liberals from the moral imperative to carry out the post-Soviet reforms has become one of the reasons for the unpopularity of liberal parties in modern Russia and the systemic crisis of this ideology. The consequences of this decision revealed in the work represent the practical significance of this article.

Keywords

• liberalism
• morality as a political resource
• ratio of morality and politics
• liberal reforms
• Yegor Gaidar
• Anatoly Chubais