Russian Federation: Market
Liberalization,
Authoritarianism, and Oil
The formation of the USSR

Formed in 1917: Bolsheviks against Czar
Nicholas II.


Lenin and Marx: The communist party and capitalism
New Economic Program: hybrid of capitalism and
socialism

The ideals of communism: Redistribution of
power to the proletarian.
 Stalin and the birth of the command economy.


Soviet Authoritarianism, 20 million deaths, the
repression of media and political dissent.
Ethnicity in the USSR: the Russianization of the
region.
Oil and the Command Economy
 Control
over resources and infrastructure:
State run monopolies and the
consolidation of power in Central Asia.
Map of the Current Federation

Formed after the fall of
the USSR in 1991
following a failed
coup.


Causes of failure:
Misallocation of goods
and services, an
overemphasis on
industry over
agriculture, Cold War
Military expenditure.
Is Central Asia a
member of the
federation?
The Privatization of Russia
 Failure
of Socialism required new
economic model: Capitalism.
 Foreign Direct Investment and the
Dismantling of the Command Economy.
 Loss of State revenue and debt.

By 1998 Russia’s debt was 90 percent of its
GDP.
The birth of the Oligarch
 Rise
in cost of goods and loss of personal
savings: limiting the entrepreneur.
 Sale of state run industries: political
power, corruption and bribes.
 Consolidation of wealth and power and the
effects on social services.
NeoLiberalism in Russia: Shock
Therapy

Dramatic rise in the
costs of goods.
 Life expectancy:




Male: 1990 63.9, 2003 59
Female: 1990 74.4, 2003
72
No other country in the
world has experienced
this large of a difference
during peacetime.
Causes: Job loss, stress
and alcoholism.
Neoliberalism and the Rise of a
New Russian Authoritarianism
 Authoritarianism:
of or pertaining to a
governmental or political system, principle,
or practice in which individual freedom is
held as completely subordinate to the
power or authority of the state, centered
either in one person or a small group that
is not constitutionally accountable to the
people.
Continued…
 Privatization
of Russian Oil empowers
multinational oil companies and oligarchs.
 Russian state losses revenue to pay for
social services: social unrest.
 Multinational oil companies pushing
private oil companies to construct new
pipelines in Central Asia that by-pass
Russia.

Weakens Russia’s regional power
Gazprom
 Primarily
State owned oil and gas
monopoly: Vladimir Putin the next
president of Gazprom?
 The imprisonment of an Oligarch: Yukos
and Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
Videos
 http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/
july-dec04/yukos_12-23.html#
Conclusion
 The
rapid privatization and
neoliberalization of Russian industry in the
1990’s and early 2000’s were responsible
for the return of authoritarianism in Russia.
 People’s experience with privatization,
their loss of well-being, has given political
support to Putin’s aggressive authoritarian
tactics.