Privatization in Russia
Post-Soviet reforms of the Russian economy in the 90s / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Privatization in Russia describes the series of post-Soviet reforms that resulted in large-scale privatization of Russia's state-owned assets, particularly in the industrial, energy, and financial sectors. Most privatization took place in the early and mid-1990s under Boris Yeltsin, who assumed the presidency following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
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Private ownership of enterprises and property had essentially remained illegal throughout the Soviet era, with Soviet Communism emphasizing national control over all means of production but human labor.[1] Under the Soviet Union, the number of state enterprises was estimated at 45,000.[2]
Privatization facilitated the transfer of significant wealth to a relatively small group of business oligarchs and New Russians, particularly natural gas and oil executives.[3] This economic transition has been described as katastroika,[4] which is a combination of catastrophe and the term perestroika, and as "the most cataclysmic peacetime economic collapse of an industrial country in history".[5]
A few strategic assets, including much of the Russian defense industry, were not privatized during the 1990s. The mass privatization of this era remains a highly contentious issue in Russian society, with many Russians calling for revision or reversal of the reforms.[6]