Free Market Reform in Russia

11 Pages 2646 Words

ntrolled economies and put on their own. These inexperienced civilians would be like fish in a tank full of sharks. With their new president Boris Yeltsin promising better times, citizens were hopeful that things would get better. They would soon find out that to get to the good times, they would have to go through a very difficult period (Parenti, 1997). For now, all they had gained from the new government would be their independence. This independence was a very scary thought for many Russian citizens!
When the Russian government took control of the USSR in 1991, communist party members lost all legal status. All belongings were turned over to Russia, even communist newspapers. Next the new president ordered that the congress be disbanded (Parenti, 1997). Apparently congress wasn’t gong along with all the reforms for a free market. In 1993, Yeltsin went even farther and disbanded the Russian parliament and every other elected representative body in the country, including many municipal and regional councils (Anders, 1995). The president got rid of the constitutional court and jailed any resistors. He even rewrote the constitution giving the executive nearly absolute power.
In December of 1993, citizens of Russia elected a new parliament and approved a new constitution done by Yeltsin. In this political system, the president wields considerable executive power (Anders, 1995). There is no vice president, and the president nominates the highest state officials. He is also head of the armed forces and the National Security Council.
The Facts About Becoming a Market Economy
The essential feature to becoming a market economy is to make the market the main instrument of allocation. These key markets must exist, including product, labor, capital, and property markets (Anders, 1995). To become a market economy you must first divide up the power so there is more than one final says in the important decisi...