rivatized in name, judicial and legal reforms necessary to force them to behave like truly private corporations were not forthcoming. It quickly became apparent that such words as privatization and economic reform and even democracy meant entirely different things in the Russian context than in the American context. Russian privatization has come to mean the wholesale transfer of valuable state assets to a small group of tycoons known as oligarchs who are more interested in shipping anything of value out of the country than in investing their profits in domestic production. Moreover, inefficient factories were handed over to their Soviet-era managers, who bitterly resisted the necessary downsizing and restructuring. In the fall of 1998, Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov wanted to gear Russia sharply away from the free-market approach that had shaped its economic policy since 1991. According to Wellington’s Evening Post dated November 9, 1998, Primakov, with assistance of his First Deputy for the Economy, a communist Yuri Maslyukov, presided over a program to step up State intervention in the economy. They were aware that it may have jeopardized the International Monetary Fund assistance but the attempt at capitalist society was not successful. To the beleaguered people of Russia, certainties of old-style communism seemed attractive. A joke on the streets of Moscow, according to World Bank staffer John Nellis, was: "Everything the Communists told us about communism was a complete and utter lie. Unfortunately, everything the Communists told us about capitalism turned out to be true." The establishment of a free-market may require decades to accomplish since this quick attempt was not successful.The economy of Russia did not improve as speculated. Due to years of practicing communism, the Russian people experienced “shock therapy” when a free-market was in action. Another explanation was: because of constant U.S. in...
