## Revisiting the Soviet Breakup

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**Canonical URL:** [Revisiting the Soviet Breakup](https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2023/march/book-review-martlaar.pdf)

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### Overview
- Review published March 2023 | FINANCE & DEVELOPMENT 69.
- John Odling-Smee’s book, Towards Market Economies: The IMF and the Economic Transition in Russia and Other Former Soviet Countries, describes the transformation of planned economies after the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union.
- The reviewer is MART LAAR, a former prime minister of Estonia.

### Major findings and narrative features
- The book combines personal anecdotes (government offices, dachas, official dinners) with serious economic analysis.
- Vivid depiction of the collapse’s human cost: endless queues before state food shops with empty shelves; people selling small items by the roadside; shivering.
- The initial situation in 1991 was characterized by falsified statistics, lack of reliable information, and near-economic collapse.
- The IMF and Odling-Smee’s team worked in the region; Odling-Smee headed the IMF team responsible for the former Soviet republics from 1992 to 2003.

### Explanations for divergent outcomes and causes of failure
- Faster reforms shorten economic agony: “The faster reforms are implemented, the sooner the economy will recover. By delaying difficult reforms, you are just prolonging the agony and pain of people.”
- Success of the Baltic countries (reviewer’s additions):
  - They broke away completely from their Communist past.
  - The Soviet economy collapsed as a result of the collapse of the Soviet system, not because of reforms.
- Deep political weakness—above all, corruption and cronyism—prevented the growth of real market economies.
- The failure of reforms led to corruption, cronyism, and oligarchy, which the reviewer links to the emergence of Putin and war.

### Temporal scope and limitations
- The book was written before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and therefore does not cover that event, though it is said to describe its roots.

### Publication details
- Title: Towards Market Economies: The IMF and the Economic Transition in Russia and Other Former Soviet Countries
- Author: John Odling-Smee
- Publisher: Hamilton Books, New York, NY, 2022
- Length and price: 248 pp., $24.99

_Review by MART LAAR, former prime minister of Estonia._

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_Source: https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2023/march/book-review-martlaar.pdf_