Change In Putins Russia - Power Money And People

Change in Putin’s Russia: Power, Money and People (2010) – Simon Pirani
Pluto Press | ISBN: 9780745326900
Condition: Good | Sold by Crappy Old Books

Russia. An enormous country with an equally enormous history of revolutions, political upheavals, ambitious rulers and the occasional unfortunate tendency for those who disagree with the government to find themselves experiencing serious career difficulties. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, there was considerable optimism that democracy, free markets and Western-style prosperity might finally arrive. Unfortunately, someone appears to have misplaced the instructions.

In Change in Putin’s Russia: Power, Money and People, Simon Pirani examines the extraordinary transformation of post-Soviet Russia, exploring what happened when communism gave way to capitalism, state industries became private fortunes, and a relatively obscure former KGB officer named Vladimir Putin emerged as the dominant figure in Russian politics.

Rather than simply presenting another account of powerful men rearranging the furniture in the Kremlin, Pirani directs attention towards the relationship between political authority, economic change and ordinary Russian society. Who benefited from the transition to capitalism? Who paid the price? And how did a revolution supposedly intended to liberate the population produce a political and economic system in which wealth and influence became concentrated in remarkably few hands?

The story involves oligarchs, privatisation, industrial restructuring, labour struggles and the complicated legacy of seventy years of Soviet rule. The disappearance of communism did not, rather inconveniently, result in the disappearance of poverty, corruption or authoritarian habits. Instead, Russia embarked upon a turbulent experiment in which former state assets could become spectacular private fortunes while millions of ordinary citizens faced economic insecurity and diminishing expectations.

Pirani examines these developments with particular attention to workers, social movements and the experiences of people whose lives rarely feature prominently in presidential biographies. After all, while politicians announce historic transformations and businessmen celebrate their latest acquisitions, somebody still has to work in the factories, pay the rent and wonder why the promised economic miracle seems to have taken a wrong turning somewhere outside Moscow.

Published in 2010, during Dmitry Medvedev’s presidency and Putin’s period as prime minister, the book provides an especially interesting historical perspective. Written before Putin’s return to the presidency in 2012 and Russia’s subsequent full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, it captures an earlier stage in the consolidation of the political and economic arrangements that would shape Russia’s future.

As a work of political and economic analysis, Change in Putin’s Russia offers a more substantial investigation than the familiar spectacle of commentators endlessly speculating about what Vladimir Putin might be thinking over breakfast.

This 2010 Pluto Press paperback, offered in Good condition by Crappy Old Books, will appeal to students of Russian history, political economy, international relations and anyone interested in understanding how the collapse of one deeply entrenched system of power can produce another.

A thought-provoking examination of money, politics and ordinary people in a country where everything was supposed to change.

And, in certain rather important respects, remarkably little did.

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