Anatoly Chubais Quotes

I joined the city government, and we start to operate as the bureaucrats on the local level, so we were the only ones in the whole Russian team who were experienced in practical bureaucratic management in the complicated condition of 1990.

Money is the kind of instrument which is very speedily produced.

There was the scientific and technical progress which couldn't be predicted by the state.

The diversification of the people's demand could not be followed by the state apparatus.

During the Soviet era, private ownership was a crime punishable with up to five years in prison.

The kind of capitalism I hate most is crony capitalism, the friends who decide. These are things which should be killed in Russia.

I am joining the government not from the academic position but from St. Petersburg city council.

40 million Russians are convinced that I am a scoundrel, a thief, a criminal or a CIA agent, who deserves to be shot, hanged or drawn and quartered.

Killing the private property-that was the center of the Marxist economy and Marxist ideology. That was the center of the Lenin ideology.

The Moscow energy system has never sustained such a load.

The Americans have gone through 150 years of ups and downs, to pull themselves up out of the mud. After only 15 years, Russia is already in the process of liberating itself from the same thing.

The red directors were one of the main political forces. Another force was the former Soviet ministers who lost everything because of the transformation of the Soviet Union to Russia.

The Bolsheviks started not just on the killing of private property; they were trying to abolish money itself.

The directors thought, They understand nothing in the real economy, in real life. They read some stupid books, and they came from the moon to the earth, and maybe in one month they will disappear.

There was no doubt that sooner or later we will fight. But we will fight not in the way of the dissidents' protests. We understood that we needed to be as professional as possible.

I'm communicating with the directors of the Soviet companies, and I see that it is wrong, but when I go to the official discussions, they discuss we should change the color of the walls.

It was almost forbidden in the Soviet Union to study the New Economic Policy.

You're not always able to choose.

If I just produce the transparent ideal accepted by the Western experts, a process of privatization which will be very good but never happen, that means nothing.

You're never able to please everybody, especially when you're transforming a country like Russia.

During the election in 1989, there was the first Soviet election with alternative candidates to local government. I myself arranged special training for them.