Grand Bargain (Window of Opportunity)
대타협 (그랜드 바겐)
A joint Western-Soviet economic revitalization package drafted in spring 1991 by a working group co-chaired by Grigory Yavlinsky and Graham Allison under the auspices of Harvard's Kennedy School and Moscow's EPICenter. The 'Grand Bargain' proposed massive G7 financial assistance on a Marshall Plan scale in exchange for the Soviet Union's commitment to radical market reform and integration into the world economy. Delivered to President George H. W. Bush and Secretary of State James Baker in June 1991, it was abandoned when Gorbachev opted to present a different program at the London G7 summit in July; the U.S. National Security Council withheld support on geopolitical grounds, leaving the plan as a path not taken.
In depth
Background
By 1989–1990, as communist regimes fell across Eastern Europe, the Soviet economy was deteriorating rapidly. Partial reforms had allowed cooperatives to earn profits while prices remained fixed, producing chronic shortages and hoarding. After Yavlinsky's radical 500 Days transition plan was rejected at the union level in autumn 1990, he and his colleagues founded the independent think tank EPICenter in Moscow.
The Proposal
The Joint Working Group on Western Cooperation in the Soviet Transformation to Democracy and the Market Economy, co-chaired by Graham Allison (Harvard Kennedy School) and Grigory Yavlinsky (EPICenter), worked for roughly five months to produce Window of Opportunity: The Grand Bargain for Democracy in the Soviet Union. Its core was a conditional 'grand bargain': the USSR would commit to rapid price liberalization, currency convertibility, large-scale privatization, and integration into the world economy, in return for tens of billions of dollars annually in G7 financial assistance, a Marshall Plan for the Soviet Union. The report warned, with explicit reference to Weimar Germany, that allowing the Soviet economy to collapse would create a far greater geopolitical danger.
Failure and Aftermath
Yavlinsky presented the plan directly to President Bush at the White House on 31 May 1991. On 3 June, however, the U.S. National Security Council declined to support it on geopolitical grounds despite acknowledging its economic merits; Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady stated that 'our goal is to turn them into a third-rate power.' Meanwhile Gorbachev took a different program, drafted by Abalkin, Aganbegyan, and Petrakov, to the London G7 summit in July 1991, and Yavlinsky refused to accompany him in protest. The G7 did not back Gorbachev's proposal, leaving Moscow without the external assistance it had sought. The August coup followed a month later, and the Soviet Union dissolved in December 1991.
Related people
Related historical events
Sources
- yavlinsky.ru Yavlinsky's official site: book listing confirming title and joint Harvard-EPICenter authorship
- wilsonquarterly.com Wilson Quarterly (Fall 2016): detailed narrative of the Grand Bargain, Bush/Baker response, NSC deliberations, and G7 London outcome
- yabloko.ru Yabloko party site (April 2025): publication of declassified NSC transcript (3 June 1991), including Brady's 'third-rate power' statement and the full chronology of rejection
- carnegieendowment.org Carnegie Endowment (Åslund, 2000): confirms Grand Bargain as a concrete initiative prepared for the July 1991 G7 London summit and not accepted
- cato.org Cato Journal (Dorn, 1991): contemporary account of the 19 July 1991 Senate testimony by Allison and Yavlinsky, confirming the transition plan's premise
- novayagazeta.ru Novaya Gazeta (May 2025): detailed Russian-language account confirming Russian name 'Согласие на шанс' and full program history, including Gorbachev's last-minute switch and the August coup