Aide: Yegor Gaidar, acting prime minister under Yeltsin and economic reformer, dies aged 53

Aide: Gaidar, acting PM under Yeltsin, dies

MOSCOW — Yegor Gaidar, who oversaw Russia’s painful economic transition from communism to the free market in the 1990s, died Wednesday, his aide said. He was 53.

Gaidar’s aide Valery Natarov told The Associated Press that Gaidar died unexpectedly, early Wednesday, at his Moscow-region home while he was working on a book. Gaidar died of a a blood clot, Natarov said. No other details were immediately available.

Gaidar served under Boris Yeltsin in the early 1990s and was acting prime minister for six months in 1992. He oversaw the so-called shock therapy reforms, subjecting the heavily centralized economy to a juddering overnight liberalization of prices that were formerly set by the state — and introducing the country to the murky privatizations that gave birth to the Russian oligarch.

Gaidar, a graduate of the economics faculty of Moscow State University, was among a group of young liberal politicians in the 1990s who have in recent years been cast in a dubious light by Russia’s current leadership as the architects of the decade’s economic and political chaos.

Former associates acknowledged Gaidar as an object of loathing among ordinary Russians who lost everything during the economic liberalization, but they praised him as a man who averted greater catastrophe.

“He stood before the choice of civil war or painful reforms,” Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister under Yeltsin, told the Ekho Moskvy radio station. “He gave his life to avert civil war.”

Anatoly Chubais, Gaidar’s close associate in the reforms and former deputy prime minister, described Gaidar in his blog as a friend and “an intellectual and moral leader for all of us.”

“He was a great man,” Chubais said. “Russia is very lucky to have had him in one of the most difficult times of its history. … He saved the country from hunger, civil war and collapse.”

Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, who opposed Gaidar’s reforms, said in comments carried by the Itar-TASS news agency that he “personally grieves” Gaidar’s death. But he also pointed to what he called the shortcomings of Gaidar’s policies.

“Gaidar went into politics with many hopes but his plan was to (resolve all the problems) in one shot,” Gorbachev said.

Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the leader of the right-wing Liberal Democratic Party, and a contemporary of Gaidar as a State Duma deputy, singled out his Gaidar’s courage.

“He had courage to stand up for his position that he never concealed. He was a man of great erudition and could answer any question. He made a great contribution to Russia’s economic science. I am very sorry that such people die so young,” Zhirinovsky said.

Years after leaving office, Gaidar fell ill on a book promotion trip to Ireland in November 2006, a few days after the poisoning death of former Russian security agent Alexander Litvinenko. Speculation was rife that Gaidar, too, was poisoned. After recovering he pointed the finger at unidentified enemies of the Kremlin.

Gaidar — whose trademark combover hairstyle gave him a striking appearance — was part of a renowned family. His grandfather, Arkady, was a famed Soviet author of children’s books that remain popular to this day. His father, Timur, was a military reporter with the Soviet Pravda newspaper and fought in the Bay of Pigs invasion. His daughter, Maria, is a liberal campaigner who has been arrested several times for taking part in anti-government rallies and now serves as an aide to Nikita Belykh, a regional governor.

Associated Press writers Lynn Berry and Nataliya Vasilyeva contributed to this report.