Technocrats of Continuity: Soviet International Bankers and the Persistence of the State, 1988–2011

Abstract

Since the dissolution of the USSR, the Russian state has accommodated private property without abandoning its dominant position. This essay argues that, over two decades stretching from perestroika until the 2000s, the centrality of the state has been embodied by technocratic continuity amongst upper and mid-level managers of Soviet and then Russian international finance. This case is made here by focusing on a group of Soviet bankers working out of Zürich. Two milestone events frame the argument articulated throughout the essay: the issue of the first Soviet international bond and the establishment of a Soviet–Western financial joint venture in the West in 1988, and the opening of a full-fledged Russian bank in the United States in 2011.