Who robs once, will rob twice

The history of economic reforms in Russia makes up ten years

Ten years have passed since the moment when Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed the decree that started the privatizations. Russia has made such "progress" in market reforms that even the USA acknowledged Russia as a country with a market economy. However, the majority of Russian people believe that they were simply robbed. The fathers of privatization continue to say that it was meant to happen, nothing would work out otherwise. So, what do we have?

On August 14, 1992, Boris Yeltsin signed the decree “On the institution of the system of privatization checks in the Russian Federation.” Every Russian citizen had those checks, and people could do anything they wanted to do with the first national stock of the new Russia. Those checks theoretically gave the opportunity to the people of Russia to receive a piece of one-third of the national wealth, which was to be exchanged into privatization checks.

People did not have any idea what stocks were at that period of time. No one knew that, and no one was willing to work on the economic education of the Russian people. The democrats’ major objective was to make it impossible to return to socialism, and they were doing their best to suppress the political domination of communists. The democrats were also actively working on the creation of a class of proprietors that could be of great help to future reforms. It did not even occur to them to share the riches of Russia with the people of Russia.

The wild national plundering ended up with a political crisis and street pogroms. The Supreme Council, chaired by senior Chechen Ruslan Khasbulatov, attempted a coup. Russian tanks and special forces suppressed the rebellion very quickly. The reformist government was changed, and the reforms were basically over. Russia was making its first steps towards the ugly situation it is in today.

The people didn’t know indeed what to do with those privatization checks. They did not know that they could buy a ticket to an exchange and make real stock deals. Vice versa, people were trying to sell their checks and get some money for them. Criminal structures were buying the checks up. In other words, the privatization created organized crime, which grew together with crimes of officials on all levels.

The great number of criminal scandals buried the idea of economic reforms. People’s savings, which could invested in Russia's economy, have been converted in dollars, investing in the prosperity of foreign companies. The Russian stock market looks like a victim of a criminal abortion, and the economy would die without loans. Who robs once, will rob twice.

Dmitry Slobodanuk PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov