From Reform to Ruin? Russian Elites and the Making of an Autocracy at War

More than three decades after the end of the Soviet Union, Russia is waging a full-scale war in Europe under an increasingly repressive political system – raising urgent questions about how this trajectory came to pass. The event brings together a renowned global historian of the Soviet Union and Russia and an insider and leading expert on the Russian economy, whose two recent books shed new light on the role elites have played in this fateful transformation. Spanning the late Soviet period to the present, the discussion traces the tragic paths of reform-minded economists who once hoped to ‘civilise’ Russia through markets to today’s political and business elites, many of whom have adapted to – and in some cases enabled – the consolidation of a wartime authoritarian regime by turning into willing ‘servants’. By placing these perspectives in dialogue, the event explores how reform ideas, individual interests, and deeply historical constraints have shaped elite behaviour at critical moments, and to what extent responsibility for Russia’s current course lies with those who sought to reform, manage, or ultimately serve the system.
A joint event with the Cluster of Excellence ‘Contestations of the Liberal Script’ (SCRIPTS).
Speakers:
Tobias Rupprecht is Heisenberg Professor of East European and Global History at Humboldt University of Berlin and a fellow of the British Royal Historical Society. He is the author of, among others, The Tragedy of Soviet Market Economists. The Failed Quest to Civilise Russia, 1972–2022 (2026, Cambridge University Press), 1989. A Global History of Eastern Europe (2019, Cambridge University Press), and Soviet Internationalism after Stalin. Interaction and Exchange between the USSR and Latin America during the Cold War (2015, Cambridge University Press).
Alexandra Prokopenko is a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin. She is the author of From Sovereigns to Servants. How the War Against Ukraine Reshaped Russia’s Elite (2026, Hurst) and has written for major international outlets such as the Financial Times and The Economist. Before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, she was an adviser at Russia’s central bank and a Russian government press corps journalist, reporting from the Kremlin.
Sebastian Hoppe is a postdoctoral fellow in the research cluster Political Economy and Integration at the Centre for East European and International Studies (ZOiS).