MOSCOW, January 07, /ITAR-TASS/. Acclaimed Russian economist, the pioneer of the Gorbachev-era openness Nikolai Shmelev died at the age of 77, Valentin Fyodorov, deputy director of the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, which had been headed by Shmelev, told Itar-Tass.
“Nikolai Petrovich [Shmelev] died of heart attack at home,” Fyodorov said.
Nikolai Shmelev was born in Moscow in 1936. He graduated from the department of economics of the Moscow State University. He worked at the Institute of Economics of the USSR Academy of Sciences, at the Institute of the Economy of the World Socialist System of the USSR Academy of Sciences, was a lecturer at the propaganda department of the central committee of the USSR Communist Party. In 1983-1992, he worked at the Institute of US and Canadian Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1993, he joined the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, ultimately becoming its director. He was a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
In 1987, Nikolai Shmelev published his famous article “Advances and Debts” in the Novy Mir literary journal, opening up the era of perestroika and openness. The article threw critical light on the economy of developed socialist society. Although offering no actual solutions, the author set the reader thinking about the situation in the country.
In 1996, he wrote a sequel to this article - the book “Advances and Debts: Yesterday and Tomorrow of Russian Economic Reforms.