The privatization process and the birth of russian Oligarchs During the 1990s

Abstract

As the Soviet bloc came to an end, a process that was completed in late 1991, Russia underwent a period of profound transformation, in which the political and economic system of the country was reformed, abandoning the Soviet mode of state and economic organization, and incorporating principles that would lead the country to officially integrate the list of capitalist countries. Given the historical importance of this decade of changes, and as this period is essential for the understanding of the current formation of the Russian state and its performance in the international scenario, this paper will focus especially on the process of privatization of the economy that occurred in the first half of the 1990s, trying to analyze how this process was fundamental for the formation of a class of Russians businessmen, also highlighting how the way the process was conducted led to the concentration of private property on a few individuals. Through a bibliographic study and based on the Marxist theoretical framework, we will seek to highlight how the marked enrichment of few Russian citizens has enabled the formation of a class of owners with significant political powers, who actively act in the politics of the Russian government, especially in economic policy and in the articulation of electoral processes, which leads part of the bibliography consulted to use the term oligarchy to group them as a class with aligned interests.