Privatization: A System of Priorities

A critical stage in the implementation of the economic reform has arrived. The situation is extremely confused and contradictory. Extremely pressing economic, social, and political problems are intertwined. In the economic area proper, the transition to the market requires untangling a tight knot of problems: the liberation [deregulation] of prices, the financial rehabilitation of the economy, demonopolization and the formation of a market infrastructure, the strengthening of the ruble to the point where it is convertible, and the creation of a tax system appropriate to the market. The social and political aspects of the reform have taken on enormous significance. After all, they determine the general background of and the potential limits to the radicalization of the economic reforms.