"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"
About this Quote
It’s the candor of a technocrat confessing that politics, to him, is combat by other means. Chubais doesn’t debate whether conflict is coming; he treats it as scheduled. “There was no doubt” strips away ideology and replaces it with inevitability. The real move is the contrast: not the dissidents’ protests, but something “professional.” In post-Soviet Russia, that word is a loaded badge. It doesn’t mean competent civic engagement; it signals insider literacy: knowing which levers matter, which institutions can be bent, which alliances buy protection, which rules are ornamental.
The subtext is a quiet dismissal of street politics as amateur hour. Dissidents moralize; professionals execute. That framing reveals an entire governing ethos from the 1990s reform class: legitimacy comes not from mass participation but from managerial prowess, from “getting things done” inside a state apparatus that is simultaneously collapsing and being rapidly repurposed. It’s also a defensive posture. If you’re an architect of privatization and shock-therapy reforms, you can’t afford politics as public catharsis; you need politics as risk management.
Context sharpens the edge. Chubais emerged as a central operator in Yeltsin-era reforms, when the state was up for grabs and the public sphere was volatile. “Fight” reads as factional struggle within the elite as much as confrontation with opponents. The quote betrays a worldview in which democracy is theater and power is a skill set: professionalism as a moral alibi, and inevitability as an excuse for hardball.
The subtext is a quiet dismissal of street politics as amateur hour. Dissidents moralize; professionals execute. That framing reveals an entire governing ethos from the 1990s reform class: legitimacy comes not from mass participation but from managerial prowess, from “getting things done” inside a state apparatus that is simultaneously collapsing and being rapidly repurposed. It’s also a defensive posture. If you’re an architect of privatization and shock-therapy reforms, you can’t afford politics as public catharsis; you need politics as risk management.
Context sharpens the edge. Chubais emerged as a central operator in Yeltsin-era reforms, when the state was up for grabs and the public sphere was volatile. “Fight” reads as factional struggle within the elite as much as confrontation with opponents. The quote betrays a worldview in which democracy is theater and power is a skill set: professionalism as a moral alibi, and inevitability as an excuse for hardball.
Quote Details
| Topic | War |
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