The Processes of Denationalization and Privatization in Russia in the 1990s. Part 1

Abstract

The synthesis and systematization of the literature on the history of modern economic reform, accumulated over more than twenty years, allow us to streamline the existing ideas about the processes occurring in the framework of transformations and to set a new vector for comprehending the socio-economic development of Russia in the last decade of the 20th century and the first decades of the 21st century. A step in this direction is the analysis of publications reflecting the preparation, progress and results of state and municipal property privatization in the 1990s. The historiographical review includes monographs and articles written by both the apologists of accelerated privatization, and their opponents and critics. The review of this literature reveals a range of opinions on the preferences for the denationalizing Russian economy, evaluation of the results of privatization by the end of the 1990s, and the possibility of alternative ways to improve the efficiency of domestic enterprises. In particular, it is noted that the apologists of accelerated privatization (E. T. Gaidar, A. B. Chubais) focus on the quantitative indicators of State and municipal property transfer into private ownership. Critics of the Government’s privatization option prefer talking about qualitative implications of “property revolution†, including reducing the efficiency of privatized enterprises, falling living standards, deteriorating the legal status of employees. In the first part of the article, the author analyses the publications dedicated to the study of the foreign experience of privatization preceding the preparations for the reform of the property relations in Russia and to the evaluation of the process and results of the accelerated privatization from the position of Government supporters of the course of market reforms in the domestic economy.