Stanislav Sergeyevich Shatalin was born on 24 August 1934, in the village of Detskoye Selo in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic's Leningrad Oblast.

[5] As a result, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev sought the advice of Shatalin and several other liberal economists to devise an economic plan.

[6] The response from conservatives was largely negative; Shatalin was accused of being an opponent of Marxism–Leninism, and (eventually successful) efforts were made by party hardliners to end the programme.

[7] Among his opponents was Mykola Azarov, later Prime Minister of Ukraine, who would claim in 2015 that he was told "Young man, don't you see you're talking to cattle?

Resources were spent thoughtlessly on gigantic and inefficient projects, on building up military might and on foreign policy adventures with an ideological underpinning, although all this has long been beyond our means.Following Gorbachev's cancellation of the 500 Days Programme, Shatalin experienced a reversal in fortune, being removed from the economic council he served on.

However, Shatalin was politically sidelined by younger and more radical co-authors of the 500 Days Programme, such as Grigory Yavlinsky, who supported measures like shock therapy.

[7] Shatalin made an effort to maintain political relevance in later years, mulling a campaign in the 1996 Russian presidential election[7] and founding the "My Fatherland" movement alongside colonel general Boris Gromov and singer Joseph Kobzon.