"The partial results of liberalization (lifting price controls) included worsening already apparent hyperinflation (after the Central Bank, an organ under parliament, which was skeptical of Yeltsin's reforms, was short of revenue and printed money to finance its debt) and the near bankruptcy of much of Russian industry.
"The process of liberalization would create winners and losers, depending on how particular industries, classes, age groups, ethnic groups, regions, and other sectors of Russian society were positioned. Some would benefit by the opening of competition; others would suffer. Among the winners were the new class of entrepreneurs and black marketeers that had emerged under Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika. But liberalizing prices meant that the elderly and others on fixed incomes would suffer a severe drop in living standards, and people would see a lifetime of savings wiped out.
"With inflation at double-digit rates per month as a result of printing, macroeconomic stabilization was enacted to curb this trend. Stabilization, also called structural adjustment, is a harsh austerity regime (tight monetary policy and fiscal policy) for the economy in which the government seeks to control inflation). Under the stabilization program, the government let most prices float, raised interest rates to record highs, raised heavy new taxes, sharply cut back on government subsidies to industry and construction, and made massive cuts in state welfare spending..."
http://www.search.com/reference/History_of_post-Soviet_Russia#Economic_depression_and_social_decay
On 2010-02-14, at 3:53 PM, Chris Doss wrote:
> Health care and education are both free in Russia (not counting bribes/tips). In fact, the number of people enrolled in universities is about twice as high as it was in 1990. State health care is exactly the same as in the USSR -- free and bad. I should know, because I use it and pay nothing.
>
> Yeltsin introduced a whole raft of benefits as an emergency measure during the crisis; it is those benefits that were almost monetized several years ago.
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Marv Gandall <marvgandall at videotron.ca>
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Sent: Sun, February 14, 2010 10:32:59 PM
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] What Would Have to Happen First
>
> Hyperinflation destroys social benefits as effectively as cutbacks and yours is the only account I've read which suggests that health, education, pensions, and other popular programs from the Soviet era remained intact in the decade following the dissolution of the USSR, and that the nomenklatura did not benefit from the redistribution of state properties. Yeltsin's shelling of the Parliament was a storm in a teacup compared to the bloody widespread repression which has historically accompanied counter-revolutions and aborted popular uprisings. That incident did not alter the fact that capitalism was already being restored peacefully in the fSU, contrary to the expectations of Marxists and others did not concieve that the working class or bureaucratic caste or a new state capitalist class (take your choice) would consent to the restoration of private ownership, abolished after the Russian Revolution, without a struggle. But I don't intend to engage in
> further wordplay with y!
> ou as in previous threads, so you can have the last word.
>
>
> On 2010-02-14, at 1:47 PM, Chris Doss wrote:
>
>> The social safety net was not destroyed, but largely remains intact. Half the population of St. Petersburg gets state benefits to this day. In fact, Yeltsin INCREASED the amount of benefits available to various groups. Russia's economic problems in the 90s were not due to an attack on the social safety net, but because of hyperinflation and capital flight.
>>
>> Yeltsin shelled the Parliament in 1993, which is some serious conflict.
>>
>> Also, while some of the nomenklatura did benefit, note that almost none of the oligarchs were former nomenklatura. Berezovsky was a mathematician. Gusinsky was a theater director. I don't recollect what Abramovich was, but he grew up in a state orphanage and did not come from a nomenklatura background. The only two people I can think of offhand who actually were from the nomenklatura were Khodorkovsky (former Komsomol leader) and that guy who runs Lukoil.
>>
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----
>> From: Marv Gandall <marvgandall at videotron.ca>
>> Last gasp of the old order, no? By that time, it was pretty clear that the reintroduction of private property relations was irreversible. Yeltsin and Putin were more typical of the evolution of the CPSU nomenklutura, much of which benefited directly from the privatization of the energy and other major industries. The aging party ranks were a spent force who could do little other than peacefully protest the assault on their living standards which accompanied the destruction of the social safety net.
>> ___________________________________
>> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ___________________________________
>> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
>
>
>
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk