Privatization and Transition in Russia in the Early 1990s

2   The Mass Privatization Programme

The ideas, their evolution and their embodiment in law

Introduction

Summaries of the Privatization Programme in Russia often make the assumption that there was one well-defined policy; that it was clear; that it had one set of architects; that it was well prescribed in legal terms, as it might have been in an advanced market economy; and that the process of privatization was bimodal, or that one could readily distinguish the characteristics that meant a company was or was not privatized. However, closer analysis of the history of the various different attempts at privatization and quasi-privatization in Russia, of contemporary accounts of events, and of the writings of those advising on privatization reveals ...