Russia: from a backward state-oligarchic capitalism to an advanced welfare state with a developed market and scientific-technical innovations

Using an analysis of empirical materials, this article posits three periods in Russia’s post-Soviet development: one of transformational crisis, covering the nine years from the beginning of 1991 to the end of 1999; one of socio-economic recovery and expansion during the ten years between 1999 and 2008; and a further period of crises and stagnation during the 15 years between 2009 and 2023. The article demonstrates that as a result of the reforms, over 30 years a socio-economic model of state-oligarchic capitalism has been created in Russia, with an undeveloped market and a backward social sector. Further, this period has not seen the establishing of a mechanism and set of tools for economic growth. Accordingly, we face these tasks: restoring socio-economic
growth on the one hand, and transforming Russia’s socio-economic system on the other. The article contends that in order to fundamentally transform the system of state-oligarchic capitalism, and to ensure consistent socio-economic growth, we need
major structural reforms in the fi elds of property, fi nances, and the scientific-technical re-equipping of the economy. Transformations of this kind can be carried out in Russia once an appreciable degree of socio-economic growth is achieved, along with an indispensable improvement in people’s well-being. The state needs to begin its efforts to restore significant socio-economic growth by enacting measures to strengthen the drivers of this growth on the one hand, and on the other, by providing stimuli for increasing the incomes of the population. This can be done only through mobilising large additional resources, directed primarily toward these goals.