What actually happened. Privatization in Russia Privatization check of the era of privatization in Russia
The concept of privatization
Privatization was initiated by E. T. Gaidar and A. B. Chubais, who held key positions in the government at that time.
The result of privatization was the transfer of a significant part of the state property of the country into the hands of private owners. Until now, most citizens of the Russian Federation perceive the process and results of privatization in the 1990s as criminal and immoral.
Pros and cons of privatization
Remark 1
On the one hand, active criticism of privatization is connected with the widespread opinion about the unworthiness of the new owners of state property and its receipt solely through personal and family ties with the ruling elite.
However, on the other hand, the period of privatization was very difficult from an economic, financial and political point of view, because:
- the confrontation between the President and the Supreme Council of the Russian Federation significantly hampered the creation of a legal framework and the implementation of institutional reforms;
- the Government was under strong pressure from the Supreme Council;
- at the time of the start of privatization, the state lacked the ability to effectively control its property, which is why there were frequent cases of spontaneous privatization (that is, the seizure of control over enterprises by their directors in order to make quick profits).
The main task of privatization
Privatization was carried out to solve the main problem, namely: to increase the efficiency of the economy by creating the institution of private ownership of the means of production.
But if in such areas of production as trade and services, efficiency was achieved fairly quickly, in agriculture and industry, the necessary effect was achieved much more slowly.
Carrying out privatization in Russia
Remark 2
The stage of forced privatization began in November 1991.
The state privatization program for 1992 was approved by the Supreme Council of the Russian Federation in June 1992. In accordance with it, possible ways of privatization depending on the size of enterprises were determined.
"Small" privatization involved the sale of small enterprises at auction or directly to individuals working at these enterprises.
"Voucher" or "voucher" privatization involved the transformation of large and part of medium-sized enterprises into open joint-stock companies, with the subsequent sale of shares. However, at least 29% of the authorized capital had to be sold through public auctions for privatization checks.
Remark 3
Particularly significant industries, such as subsoil, forestry, shelf, etc. not subject to privatization.
At the same time, wholesale and retail trade, light and food industry, public catering, construction, manufacturing, etc. enterprises had to be privatized.
Shares-for-shares auctions
The loans-for-shares auctions undertaken in 1995 were aimed at replenishing the state treasury with loans secured by state blocks of shares in several large companies (such as Yukos, Norilsk Nickel, Sibneft).
Remark 4
The state, represented by the Government, did not return loans, as a result of which the blocks of shares that previously belonged to the state became the property of creditors. As a result, the Government received the necessary funds, and the owners of the companies received additional shares and control over the enterprise.
The criticism of the loans-for-shares auctions was the alienation of federal property in this way at significantly lower prices, as well as the public's distrust of privatization in general due to the loans-for-shares auctions.
Consequences
Thus, as a result of privatization in our country, there was a transition from socialism to capitalism.
Remark 5
At that time, a class of “oligarchs” appeared in the Russian Federation, owning property acquired for disproportionately small money.
Privatization also led to a significant reduction in production in the light and manufacturing industries and, in general, to the deindustrialization of the country.
Privatization- opposite process nationalization, i.e., the transformation of private property into state property. Privatization is closely linked to denationalization- the transfer from the state to legal entities and individuals, partially or completely, of the functions of direct economic management, the replacement of vertical ties between ministries, other government bodies and enterprises with horizontal ones, that is, ties between the enterprises themselves.
Privatization in Russia is the process of transferring state property of the Russian Federation (formerly the RSFSR) to private ownership, which has been carried out since the early 1990s (after the collapse of the USSR). Privatization is usually associated with the names of E. T. Gaidar and A. B. Chubais, who at that time occupied key positions in the government. As a result of privatization, a significant part of the state property of Russia passed into private ownership.
Privatization in Russia is often sharply criticized. It is argued that the new owners of property received it not on merit, but due to personal ties and informal relations with the first persons of the state and their relatives. Privatization is associated with the appearance of oligarchs in Russia, too strong and unfair economic stratification of the Russian population. A significant part of the Russian population perceives the privatization of the 1990s as immoral and criminal. The people even began to call it "grabbing".
On the other hand, privatization was carried out in an extremely difficult economic, financial and political environment: the confrontation of the Supreme Council of the Russian Federation with the President and the Government made it difficult to create a legal framework and carry out institutional reforms; The government was under strong lobbying pressure from the Supreme Council; at the time of the start of privatization, the state was not able to effectively control its property; spontaneous privatization- the seizure of control over enterprises by their directors, who are not set up for the development of enterprises, but for quick profits.
The main economic challenge privatization was to increase the efficiency of the economy by creating the institution of private ownership of the means of production. While in certain areas of the economy (service, trade) this task was solved fairly quickly, in industry and agriculture the desired effect was achieved much more slowly, largely due to the fact that privatized enterprises became the property of labor collectives, that is, under the control - and in the future and in the property - of their directors. Anatoly Chubais himself later said that one of the types of privatization - loans-for-shares auctions were held, among other things, in order to prevent the communists from coming to power.
Preparatory stage. The first project for the transition to a market economy, through the mass privatization of state property, was proposed as part of the 500 Days program, developed in 1990 by a group of economists led by Stanislav Shatalin. In particular, by September 1, 1990, the 500 Days program and 20 draft laws for it were prepared, approved by the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR and submitted for consideration by the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. At the union level, however, the program was rejected.
On December 24, 1990, after the adoption of the Law of the Russian Federation N 443-1 "On Property in the RSFSR", private property was legalized in Russia. In the same place (Article 25), the concept of privatization was legislatively fixed, as the transfer of state or municipal property to private ownership.
On July 3, 1991, the law of the Russian Federation "On the privatization of state and municipal enterprises in the Russian Federation" was adopted, according to which the State Committee of the Russian Federation for State Property Management (Goskomimushchestvo of Russia) organizes the privatization of state property.
In November 1991, Anatoly Chubais was appointed chairman of the State Property Committee.
From November 1991, the stage of forced privatization began.
1992 - June 1994: mass privatization (small and voucher). In June 1992, the Supreme Council of the Russian Federation approved the State Privatization Program for 1992, which determined the possible ways of privatization for enterprises, depending on their size.
According to the program,
Small enterprises had to be sold at auction or could be sold directly to individuals working in these enterprises ("small" privatization).
Large enterprises, as well as a part of medium ones, had to be necessarily transformed into joint-stock companies of an open type, and then go through the sale of shares. At the same time, at least 29% of the authorized capital had to be sold through public auctions for privatization checks, commonly called vouchers (“check” or “voucher” privatization).
Privatization was banned in a number of especially significant sectors (subsoil, forest resources, shelf, pipelines, public roads, television stations, etc.). At the same time, enterprises of wholesale and retail trade, public catering, construction, production and processing of agricultural products, food and light industry were subject to mandatory privatization.
Small privatization. The privatization of small enterprises (trade, consumer services, etc.) was launched by the government from the beginning of 1992, without waiting for the approval by the Supreme Council of the State Privatization Program for 1992 (which happened only in June).
In April 1992, the first auction in Russia for the sale of trade, consumer services and public catering enterprises, to which Gaidar and Chubais came, was held in Nizhny Novgorod.
By November 1, 1994, 60-70% of trade, public catering and consumer services enterprises were privatized.
Voucher privatization. Enterprises undergoing privatization through the sale of shares could choose one of three options. An obligatory stage of privatization when selling for shares was the sale of a part of the authorized capital, at least 29%, for vouchers at public auctions. To do this, it was necessary to provide the population with a sufficient number of vouchers by the time the auctions began.
On October 1, 1992, privatization checks (vouchers) began to be issued to the population. Checks were distributed through branches of the Savings Bank of the Russian Federation, upon receipt it was necessary to pay 25 rubles; the nominal value of the voucher was 10 thousand rubles, which corresponded to the cost of fixed assets of enterprises per capita in January 1992 prices. Vouchers were anonymized and could be freely sold and bought, both directly between citizens and through specially created voucher investment funds. The actual cost of vouchers was determined by the balance of supply and demand and varied from 500 to 29 thousand rubles (from 5 to 24 US dollars at the exchange rate).
The first 18 auctions were held in December 1992. In total, up to February 1994, 9342 auctions were held, in which 52 million vouchers were used.
The real market value of the block of shares that could be obtained in exchange for one voucher varied widely depending on the company whose shares were purchased in exchange for a voucher, as well as on the region where this took place.
Critics of check privatization considered it dishonest and unfair, since, in their opinion, it led to an undeservedly rapid enrichment of a narrow group of people. For example, there was an opinion that the adopted privatization procedure gave serious advantages to the so-called "red directors" (heads of enterprises who received these positions in Soviet times). Using administrative pressure, directors could achieve the desired voting results at shareholders' meetings, as well as buy shares from employees of enterprises at reduced prices.
1995: Shares-for-shares auctions. The loans-for-shares auctions were undertaken in 1995 with the aim of replenishing the state treasury with loans secured by state blocks of shares in several large companies (such as Yukos, Norilsk Nickel, Sibneft). The government did not repay the loans, so the blocks of shares became the property of the creditors. The amount of funds that the government was supposed to receive was about 1.85% of the federal budget revenue.
The idea of auctions to replenish the budget was put forward by Vladimir Potanin, who headed ONEXIM Bank. The initiative was supported by the then First Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly Chubais and Deputy Prime Minister Oleg Soskovets (it was the latter, according to the then chairman of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, Sergei Dubinin, who first raised the issue of holding auctions at a meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers). Alfred Kokh, head of the State Property Committee, oversaw the holding of auctions.
As a result of loans-for-shares auctions, billionaire oligarchs appeared (Berezovsky, Khodorkovsky, Abramovich and others).
Loans-for-shares auctions have been criticized because:
The alienation of federal property was carried out at significantly reduced prices, and the competition was actually feigned.
The results of the loans-for-shares auctions were illegitimate in the eyes of a significant part of society and undermined confidence in privatization in general.
The share of the public sector and plans for further privatization.
Since 1996 annual privatization programs have been adopted.
The share of the public sector in the Russian economy is now, according to various estimates, from 50% to 71%.
In January 2014, First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, speaking at the Gaidar Forum, said that it was necessary to reduce the share of the public sector from the current 50% to 25% by 2018. According to the privatization program for 2014-16, approved by the government on July 1, 2013, state-owned blocks of shares in 514 Federal State Unitary Enterprises and 436 joint-stock companies are subject to privatization (full or partial). In general, privatization revenues are expected at the level of 1.7 trillion rubles.
Consequences
In Russia, there was a transition from socialism (or, according to the terminology of Karl Marx, state capitalism) to capitalism.
A group of so-called "oligarchs" appeared in Russia, owning property, which they got for relatively little money.
Privatization has compromised itself in the eyes of many Russians. The political rating of one of the main ideologists of privatization Anatoly Chubais is still one of the lowest among Russian politicians.
At the beginning of 2008, the same problems are on the agenda: now the privatization of social services, social guarantees of the state, since the failure of state management of the social sphere is clearly visible. And a new tool for privatization will probably be personalized budget financing (state registered financial obligations - GIFO), or in other words - State certificates (for example, Generic Certificate, etc.), which will allow (while maintaining state funding) to work in the service sector for private enterprises.
Privatization contributed to the deindustrialization of the country, a significant reduction in production in the light and manufacturing industries.
From 1992 to 2006, 119,951 state and municipal enterprises were privatized in Russia, for which the budget received 505.9 billion rubles, or (calculated at an average rate of 30 rubles for 1 US dollar) 16.9 billion dollars. Of these, more than a third (42,924 enterprises) were privatized in 1993, bringing to the budget only 450 billion of the then depreciated rubles, or, at the ruble exchange rate that existed in those years, about $90 million.
One of the results of privatization in Russia was the illegal inclusion of the housing stock of Soviet enterprises and construction trusts in the authorized capital of newly formed private companies. By law, this housing stock (dormitories and apartment-type dormitories) was supposed to be transferred to the jurisdiction of the city, but in most cases, the new owners took advantage of the weakness of the law to buy these dormitories along with the people living there. As a result, for many years the tenants face constant threats of eviction. The statute of limitations in cases of illegal privatization has already expired in most cases, so the courts and prosecutors simply ignore the problem.
Consequences for occupational safety, health of workers and life expectancy.
The new owners of the enterprises were primarily concerned with making a profit, and the preservation of the life and health of the workers they had robbed (unwitting and unwanted witnesses to the robbery) did not bother them much. This led to a steady deterioration in working conditions, the collapse of the system of labor protection and occupational medicine, the weakening of control over working conditions, and the associated increase in the number of occupational diseases and a reduction in life expectancy of workers and an increase in mortality.
According to the data for the period 1943-1992 (49 years), there were 47 accidents in coal mines with the death of people, 917 people died. For 1992-2012 (20 years) there were 99 such accidents, 834 people died. That is, despite the intensive development of new technologies over more than half a century, the number of accidents and the number of deaths (per year) in the second period increased by an average of 5.2 times and 2.2 times, respectively.
Falling living standards and the beginning of the extinction of Russia.
As a result of appropriation by a narrow circle of people of income from the sale of natural resources, the state has lost its main source of income. In terms of per capita income, the Russian Federation fell below the level of India, Brazil and Mexico. There was not enough money to pay pensions and salaries, to finance healthcare, culture, the army, and law enforcement agencies. The collapse of the health care system, the lack of money for normal food and medicine, the growth in alcohol consumption and a sharp increase in drug addiction, crime have led to an increase in mortality. By the late 1990s, the annual number of state-sponsored abortions was 3 million, nearly three times the birth rate. War veterans sold their awards to buy food. A rapid increase in mortality and a drop in the birth rate led to a demographic crisis - if it were not for the influx of migrants, the population of the Russian Federation would have decreased by ~ 6 million people in the 1990s.
Corruption during privatization.
Privatization was accompanied by massive corruption. Responsibility for the use of inside information for personal gain lies not only with Russian officials, but also with American advisers, the Harvard team, or the so-called "Harvard boys" who have been exposed to corruption. Harvard University professors Andrey Shleifer and Jonathan Hay, who helped Anatoly Chubais in the privatization of industry, were sued by the US Department of Justice and in 2005 the court awarded them a fine of $28.5 million. Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz believes that the role of both individuals and the United States as a whole in the process of enriching Russian oligarchs during privatization has remained unexplored. In 2003, he called the Russian privatization of the 1990s "illegitimate."
The attitude of the population.
Most of the Russian population has a negative attitude towards the results of privatization. As data from several sociological surveys show, about 80% of Russians (2008) consider it illegitimate and are in favor of a complete or partial revision of its results.
About 90% of Russians are of the opinion that privatization was carried out dishonestly, and large fortunes were acquired dishonestly (72% of entrepreneurs also agree with this point of view). According to the researchers, a stable, “almost consensus” rejection of privatization and the large private property formed on its basis has developed in Russian society.
An employee of the Levada Center, N. Zorkaya, wrote in 2005 that from the beginning of voucher privatization, a distrustful or sharply negative attitude almost immediately prevailed in public opinion. In 1993 polls, more than half of the respondents (50–55%) considered the distribution of vouchers to be "window dressing that will not really change anything." The majority of respondents (according to 1993 data, 74%) initially believed that as a result of privatization, the main part of state-owned enterprises would become the property of a “limited circle of persons”, and not “general population”. The vast majority of the population was in favor of reviewing the results of privatization, believing that the privatization of state property, especially large enterprises in the energy sector, extractive industries, etc., was illegal.
It is no secret that the process of denationalization in the 90s, or as it was later cunningly replaced by the term "privatization", causes bewilderment among the vast majority of Russian citizens, as well as reasonable questions from many professional specialists in this field.
In fact, everything came down to global falsification and deception of the entire population of the country. The procedure for the denationalization of state property and means of production was replaced by the banal distribution of so-called vouchers to the population, which were supposed to become a security with a face value of 10,000 non-denominated rubles apiece, but in fact turned out to be worthless paper. One voucher was then equivalent to two bottles of vodka.
On July 1, 1991, the Law "On the Basic Principles of Denationalization and Privatization of Enterprises" paved the way for a large-scale redistribution of public (according to the Constitution of the USSR) property in favor of the union nomenklatura. However, the collapse of the USSR did not allow these plans to be realized on a full scale, and the privatization of the assets of the former USSR took place mainly under the control of the leaderships of the former Soviet republics.
Privatization in Russia took place from the beginning of the 1990s (after the collapse of the USSR) and is associated primarily with the names of Gaidar and Chubais, who at that time occupied key positions in the government. As a result of privatization, people with huge fortunes (oligarchs) appeared.
pictured Anatoly Chubais
Privatization check of the era of privatization in Russia
Voucher privatization was carried out in 1992-1994. It was preceded by legislative acts of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, adopted in the summer of 1991, which provided for the redemption of state-owned enterprises and their transformation into joint-stock companies. To streamline privatization, the law “On nominal privatization accounts and deposits in the RSFSR” was adopted, according to which every citizen of Russia received a nominal privatization account, to which sums of money intended to pay for the privatized state property were to be credited. The law did not allow the sale of privatization deposits to other persons. This law, however, was not implemented, and voucher privatization was carried out instead.
Decrees of the President of the Russian Federation "On accelerating the privatization of state and municipal enterprises" (December 29, 1991), "On accelerating the privatization of state and municipal enterprises" (January 29, 1992), "On organizational measures to transform state enterprises , voluntary associations of state enterprises into joint-stock companies" (July 1, 1992), "On the introduction of the system of privatization checks in the Russian Federation" (August 14, 1992), "On the State program for the privatization of state and municipal enterprises in the Russian Federation" (December 24, 1993).
Voucher privatization was controversial, since its slogans (creating an effective owner, increasing the efficiency of enterprises, creating a socially oriented market economy) diverged from practice. According to economists, practice has won over ideology. Privatization participants did not have equal rights. Thus, employees of enterprises were granted benefits when acquiring shares in these enterprises, while citizens not employed in production (medical workers, scientists, teachers) did not have such benefits.
In the summer of 1992, vouchers (privatization checks) were introduced, which were distributed free of charge to the population and theoretically could be exchanged for a share in the shares of an enterprise. Practically the majority of vouchers were bought up by various speculators and the majority of citizens of the Russian Federation did not participate in privatization.
The nominal value of the voucher was 10 thousand rubles. The property of the country's enterprises was valued at 1,400 billion rubles, and vouchers were issued for this amount. According to the head of the State Property Committee, Chubais, who led the privatization, one voucher could buy two Volga cars. The real value of the voucher was equal to the price of two bottles of vodka.
Foreign consultants actively assisted Chubais in his work on privatization. In particular, the Harvard professor Andrey Shleifer, a native of the USSR who emigrated to the United States in 1976, was on Chubais's team. In 2005, already in America, he was accused of using his official position for personal gain (the so-called "conflict of interest" under American law), but the court found him guilty only of "breach of contract" and ordered him to pay a multi-million dollar fine. Shleifer's activities in Russia are described in detail in David McClintic's article "How Harvard Lost Russia", published in 2006 in the journal Institutional Investor. Shleifer himself considered his mission not so much economic as political, stating:
(Western) aid will be able to shift the balance of political power in such a way that free market reformers can overcome their opponents... Reform aid is needed not because it directly boosts the economy - it is too small for that - but because it helps reformers win political battles.
Former Economy Minister Andrey Nechaev commented on the voucher scheme:
From the point of view of the applied privatization model, the face value of the voucher did not matter. The voucher determined only the right to buy something during privatization. Its real value depended on the specific privatization situation at a particular enterprise. Somewhere on a voucher it was possible to get 3 shares, and somewhere - 300. In this sense, it was possible to write on it both 1 ruble and 100 thousand rubles, which would not change its purchasing power one iota. In my opinion, the idea to provide this security with a face value belonged to the Supreme Council. In order to give the face value at least some rational basis, they decided to tie it to the cost of fixed assets per capita.
This privatization procedure turned out to be beneficial for the so-called "red directors", that is, the heads of enterprises who received these positions in Soviet times. The directors became the owners of their enterprises, since they had the opportunity to buy controlling stakes.
The bulk of the population did not know what to do with vouchers, so they began to sell them to buyers. The price of vouchers was rapidly falling, falling to 3-4 thousand rubles by May 1993. In order to help sell vouchers, check investment funds were created that exchanged vouchers for shares of various companies.
Although it was assumed that as a result of voucher privatization in Russia a middle class would emerge, it resulted in a significant stratification of society.
In many ways, privatization in Russia repeated the history of the privatization of church lands in France during the French Revolution. At that time, the lands of the church were confiscated and on the basis of these lands (later the former estates of immigrants and lands belonging to the crown were added to the list of lands) banknotes were issued, which later began to be used as money. The lands were subsequently sold at auctions in which wealthy peasants and bourgeois had an advantage over poor peasants, which, as in Russia, led to the stratification of society.
Shares-for-shares auctions
The next stage of Russian privatization was associated with the so-called. “shares-for-shares” auctions, which resulted in the concentration of significant volumes of Russian industrial and extractive industries in the hands of a narrow group of individuals later called “oligarchs”. On the whole, the privatization processes have compromised the very idea in the eyes of the majority of Russian citizens, since the redistribution of property looked, from their point of view, inadequate and lacking a clear motivation.
The loans-for-shares auctions were held according to the official version in order to replenish the state budget. In practice, the need for an urgent replenishment of the budget (i.e., its acute deficit) was organized by issuing state money loans that were not secured by assets to future oligarchic groups. The funds received were used by the oligarchs to participate in auctions, and the loans were never returned to the state in full.
That is, a mega global fraud was organized and carried out with the most active complicity of the state.
As a result of these fraudulent auctions, state property was transferred into the hands of the oligarchs at an unprecedented low price.
The loans-for-shares auctions were undertaken in 1995 in order to replenish the state treasury. The government planned to raise money by privatizing some state-owned enterprises. The idea of auctions to replenish the budget was put forward by Vladimir Potanin, who headed ONEXIM Bank. The initiative was supported by Anatoly Chubais, who at that time was Deputy Prime Minister and Deputy. Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar. Alfred Kokh, head of the State Property Committee, oversaw the holding of auctions.
Vladimir Potanin 
Anatoly Chubais 
Yegor Gaidar 
Alfred Koch 
The most profitable companies were put up for sale. Auctions were called mortgage auctions, because, unlike ordinary auctions, companies were not sold, but pledged. However, they were not bought back. According to most experts, extremely low prices were set. Competition at the auctions was very low. This happened because many potential buyers were not allowed to see them. In many cases, several firms owned by the same person or group of persons participated in the competition. Moreover, state-owned enterprises were often bought not with their own money, but with money taken as if on credit from the state.
As a result of loans-for-shares auctions, billionaire oligarchs appeared (Berezovsky, Khodorkovsky, Abramovich and others).
Consequences
In general, privatization compromised itself in the eyes of ordinary people. The Russians simply did not know how to deal with privatization checks; often, in conditions of hyperinflation, they were exchanged for more “valuable” money, food, a bottle of vodka. The townsfolk, expressing their negative attitude towards privatization, often quoted Boris Yeltsin's well-known statement on this subject - "Chubais is to blame for everything!"
On January 20, 2005, the Public Opinion Foundation conducted a study among the population of the country on the topic: Analysis of the processes of privatization of state property in the Russian Federation for the period 1993-2003.
Survey of the population in 100 settlements of 44 regions, territories and republics of Russia. Interview at the place of residence January 15-16, 2005. 1500 respondents. Additional poll of the population of Moscow - 600 respondents. The statistical error does not exceed 3.6%.
Privatization, which began in Russia more than ten years ago, gave rise, among other things, to the problem of the legitimacy of property relations in our country, which remains relevant today. Almost two-thirds of Russians (64%) believe that privatization transactions were in most cases carried out in violation of the law, and only 9% - that they, as a rule, were carried out according to the law. This distribution of opinions is very stable: in 1998, the first point of view was shared by 63%, the second - by 6% of the survey participants.
In addition, Russian citizens are by no means convinced that privatization has been justified from a purely economic point of view. Only 16% of respondents believe that privatized enterprises work better than state-owned ones.
However, the opposite opinion - that they work worse - is not predominant: it is shared by 27% of respondents, while the rest choose intermediate answers to this question ("the same" - 14%, "it happens differently" - 23%) or find it difficult to answer (21%). The distribution of opinions on this issue since 1998 has also practically not changed. But although Russians are far from united in their judgments about the impact of privatization on the efficiency of production at individual enterprises, they are almost three times more likely to believe that the country as a whole develops better if most of the enterprises are state-owned than they take the opposite position - that the predominance of private ownership ensures more successful development of the country (56% and 20%, respectively). However, it should be noted that employees of non-budgetary institutions and enterprises are somewhat more likely than state employees and those who do not work to be convinced of the greater efficiency of private capital.
Seeing privatization as a scam on a national scale and, at the same time, not considering its economic consequences beneficial, Russians, for the most part, are sure that, on the whole, it has done the country more harm than good. Today, this opinion is shared by 55% of citizens (in 1998 - 61%), and only 7% (in 1998 - 8%) believe that it has brought more benefits. 22% of respondents believe that benefits and harms were equal (in 1998 - 17%).
At the same time, in recent years, the proportion of those who support revising the results of privatization has declined quite noticeably - from 60% in 2000 to 51% - in 2005. Moreover, today only a third of the respondents (33%) believe that privatization should not have been carried out at all; much more (46%) - those who believe that it should have been carried out, but otherwise (those who believe that it was carried out correctly, only 5%). It should be emphasized that young respondents, answering questions related to this topic, invariably demonstrated a less negative attitude towards both privatization itself and the owners of privatized enterprises than representatives of the older generation. For example, the opinion that privatization should not have been carried out in principle is shared by 19% of respondents under 35 and 47% of those over 55.
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Voucher period of privatization in Russia in the 1990s. was her first chord. This stage is also called the “people's” stage, since about 40 million shareholders appeared in the country thanks to checks. The voucher model was full of contradictions and legal flaws, which led to an uneven redistribution of property in the country.
Goals
In 1992 - 1994 voucher privatization was carried out in Russia. It was considered by the ideologists of economic reforms as the first stage in the transfer of state property into private hands. Forms, goals, options and specific ways of privatization were defined in special documents. These were state programs adopted in 1992 and 1993.
They proclaimed the main goals of privatization. They boiled down to the formation of a layer of private owners who were supposed to help the authorities create a market economy. It was believed that voucher privatization would help improve the efficiency of enterprises. The funds received from the hands of citizens to the treasury were planned to be spent on the development of social infrastructure. All of the above was supposed to contribute to the process of stabilizing the economic situation in the Russian Federation. In addition, voucher privatization could attract foreign investment, promote the demonopolization of the country's economy and create a competitive environment.
According to the program, state property was divided into several groups. These were enterprises whose voucher privatization was prohibited, objects that were subject to privatization in accordance with the decision of the Russian government. The other category included plants subject to immediate and mandatory privatization.
Vouchers
The government provided for four modes of privatization by which state-owned enterprises were to be given into private hands: commercial competition, auction, lease-to-own, and corporatization. The last method was associated with vouchers. According to the new legislation, every citizen of the Russian Federation acquired a personalized account. Money was credited to it, which paid for the privatization of state-owned enterprises.
The privatization check, or voucher, began to be used in Russia in early 1992. It was these government securities that were accepted as payment for a share in privatized property. According to the law, each Russian citizen had the right to receive only one voucher. These papers had a limited validity period (3 years from the date of issue). Each privatization check had a nominal value of 10,000 non-dominated rubles. At the same time, the sale and purchase of these securities was declared free, and their real price was determined by agreement of the participants in the transaction. On the eve of privatization, the totality of the country's enterprises was estimated at 1.400 billion rubles. The number of vouchers issued was determined based on this figure.
Flaws
From its inception, privatization in Russia has taken on a controversial character. Its format was vague and had many legal holes. In addition, although some countries have already experienced privatization after the collapse of the planned and centralized economy, it has never been on such a scale as in Russia. The government and the Supreme Council for a long time could not agree on how state-owned enterprises would be transferred to private hands. In addition, the format of the sale was influenced by lobbying groups seeking to protect the interests of certain businessmen and large owners.
The essence of voucher privatization was not to the liking of the main ideologists of building a market economy - Yegor Gaidar and Anatoly Chubais. Nevertheless, on July 3, 1991, the law on the use of registered accounts was nevertheless adopted. Voucher privatization in Russia has acquired many disadvantages, the most significant of which is vulnerability to corruption. Employees of enterprises had pre-emptive rights to buy back shares. As experience has shown, "red directors" often put pressure on workers, buying checks from them and seizing control of large property. They could also achieve the voting results they needed during the meeting of shareholders of the labor collective.
Progress of privatization
All stages of privatization at large and medium-sized enterprises fit in two steps. The first was the corporatization of a plant or factory and the transformation into new open joint-stock companies. The organizational and legal form of the enterprise changed radically. After that, there was an issue of shares distributed among his employees according to their vouchers. These were members of the labor collective and management. Also, part of the shares could fall into the hands of external legal entities and individuals. The proportions of this distribution were determined by the collective of working people themselves. In some cases, a certain block of shares remained in municipal or state ownership. If this happened, then representatives of the Russian Federation or its subjects were appointed to such societies.
In each case, labor collectives decided in their own way what to do with the property - to separate individual enterprises from its composition or combine them into groups, thus creating large companies. They became holdings and owned a controlling stake. It was believed that it was the workers who would best decide the fate of their enterprises. They were stakeholders (in economic theory there is a similar concept - "stakeholders"), and were not just detached indifferent observers who saw only property in the plant. Nevertheless, effective entrepreneurs did not turn out from ordinary workers. The inability of the masses to the new market conditions had an effect.
"People's privatization"
In 1992 - 1994 about 40 million people in Russia became shareholders, and another million became small businessmen. Therefore, the concept of "people's privatization" has become entrenched in everyday life. Usually this is the name given to the very first period of the redistribution of property in Russia in the 1990s.
The gratuitous distribution of vouchers proved effective only in the first months of the reforms. It soon became clear that it was impossible to estimate the real market value of these securities. The underdevelopment of market relations and the rudimentary state of the stock market affected. The cost of one voucher could vary from a few rubles to thousands of rubles, depending on the specific enterprise and conjecture.
Criminalization
Ordinary shareholders had almost no opportunity to manage the affairs of a joint-stock company, even though formally the property was distributed evenly. In addition, in 1992 the capital of all privatized enterprises was revalued. The flaw was that it was carried out without taking into account inflation. Thus, the property was underestimated, which only facilitated its transition into the hands of the "red directors" and other managers, who realized their own privileged position in time.
In fact, due to the ill-conceived mechanism for the circulation and issuance of vouchers, different groups of the population found themselves in unequal starting positions in the race for privatized property. Very quickly, this led to the criminalization of economic relations. For example, tacit and illegal transfers of blocks of shares to various influential officials became frequent, although they did not have the right to participate in the purchase of securities.
With the rampant scale of privatization, the state almost did not benefit from it. In 1993, the income from the commercial use of municipal enterprises amounted to less than a percent of the total income of the treasury. The expected foreign investment never came. Foreign businessmen were afraid to bring money to the market, where “wild capitalism” reigned, crime reigned, and the law was powerless.
results
In total, during the privatization period, about 16,000 enterprises were sold for privatization checks. By mid-1994, as a result of voucher deals, 70% of the country's industry was in private ownership. Most of the objects of small-scale privatization were also transferred. This category included 85 thousand shops, cafes, restaurants, etc. Small-scale privatization in most regions of Russia was completed by the end of 1994. By the same time, about 20 thousand joint-stock companies were created on the basis of large and medium-sized enterprises.
The state provided labor collectives with several options for benefits. Most of them (75%) preferred to choose a controlling stake. It was believed that this form of ownership would help to avoid the establishment of external third-party control over enterprises. However, the benefits of this option were very quickly reduced to nothing, due to the fact that the shares were bought up by the administration. About a third of all vouchers were resold for next to nothing with the help of voucher investment funds (ChIFs). They made deals with 22 million citizens (about 15% of Russia's population). The vouchers contributed to CHIFs yielded almost no dividends due to the fact that these short-term organizations quickly ceased to exist. Therefore, as a rule, employees became shareholders only for a short period. In addition, the possession of a single paper nowhere and never made a person a real co-owner of the enterprise.
End of the privatization voucher period
The main result of the voucher privatization was the transition from a command economy to a market model. The state has lost its monopoly in most areas of the national economy. The large-scale process lasted only two years. Such suddenness could not do without shocks. No wonder the reforms of the early 90s are still called "shock therapy". Vouchers proved to be an effective means of destroying the pre-existing economic and social system. The destruction of the old foundations could not be accompanied by economic growth.
When the voucher stage of privatization ended, private owners appeared in the country, but almost none of them could be classified as responsible and efficient entrepreneurs. The new owners, who bought up the enterprises for next to nothing, could come "from the outside", not having the slightest idea of the realities of the industry. Often, entrepreneurs cared only about making a profit, while the quality of services and production did not bother them at all. Of course, there were exceptions, but a fundamentally new and weighty class of Western-style owners did not appear in Russia and could not appear in such a short time.
In the summer of 1994, a new stage of privatization began - the monetary one. He was supposed to smooth over the shortcomings and correct the mistakes that were made in the issuance and sale of vouchers. The government hoped that paid privatization would lead to the management of enterprises by efficient and responsible entrepreneurs. This was followed by loans-for-shares auctions, which, among other things, consolidated the emergence of a new stratum of the oligarchy.
Criticism
All forms of privatization, including voucher privatization, were criticized both in the 1990s and now. One of the most frequent claims is the accusation of transferring property to private ownership too quickly. In fact, privatization in Russia took place without any preparation of state institutions and on a shaky legislative basis. Secondly, after the division of property, federal power noticeably weakened. There was an erosion of public order, and corruption began to grow. Thirdly, the class of real owners never appeared. Almost all privatized property passed to new owners through thieves and unscrupulous methods.
All this was facilitated by the viciousness of voucher mechanisms. The reformers sought to break with the communist past as quickly as possible, which led to sad consequences. Other critics simply accuse the initiators of economic reforms of crime and collusion with businessmen who made a fortune out of nothing by defrauding ordinary citizens.
Was there an alternative privatization program? Critics often say that it should have happened slowly as market institutions emerged. For an honest division of the Soviet heritage, it was proposed to extend state control over privatized property. Back in the last years of the USSR, the model of lease with the right to purchase was discussed a lot. This method could effectively replace the epic with vouchers, but it has not been addressed.
Protection of the chosen course
The policies of Gaidar and Chubais also have their defenders. Arguing about the impossibility of gradual reforms, they often refer to the difficult situation in which the economy found itself when voucher privatization began. Years of plans, five-year plans, budget distortions, and an overblown military-industrial complex during the Soviet era meant that action had to be taken urgently. Without an immediate restructuring of the economy, the country could face the danger of famine, social tension and, in the worst case, civil war. That is why the reformers, who had real power in late 1991-1992, decided to use vouchers, although both Gaidar and Chubais were initially supporters of a gradual privatization plan using familiar money.
Back in 1987, the USSR Law on State Enterprise was adopted. It was a landmark document. He fixed the actual independence of the labor collectives of factories (and in fact directors) from the state. Later this phenomenon was called "spontaneous privatization". This euphemism concealed the transfer of property into the hands of those in whose hands it was at the time the law was passed. When the start of voucher privatization was laid, the authorities of the new Russia no longer had an influence on the life of many enterprises that were formally still state-owned, but in fact had already become the domain of the “red directors”.
Another important law, adopted back in Soviet times in 1988, was the Law on Cooperative Activities. This document suggested how conveniently and legally to take away state property. Cooperatives were created at the enterprises, which began to engage in the most efficient activities of their plant, factory, etc. Their heads used the difference between their market and general state prices for their profit. The difference settled in the pocket of the director - the actual owner of the cooperative. Thus, the implementation of voucher privatization only consolidated the order that already existed in the last Soviet years of economic chaos and devastation.
