The economic liberalization reform package, that is commonly referred to as
“shock therapy”, was developed for Russia with the help of Western advisors and aimed
at building a market economy in place of the old failing Soviet economy through a quick
and complete change of all economic processes in the country. It was based on three main
economic ideas, borrowed from neoliberal economics. First, the reforms included price
liberalization for most commodities and, therefore, liberalization of enterprises from price
constraints in order to achieve a greater efficiency in production. Second, the reforms had
a goal of redistributing state property and of creating a new class of private owners
through the process of privatization. Third, in order to achieve macroeconomic
stabilization, the reforms aimed at imposing fiscal constraints on the state budget and
restrictions on government spending on subsidies to enterprises, in order to avoid
inflation (Aslund 1995)