Freeway - Russia - a country without structure?

Russia - a country without structure?

In 1991 the Communistic Soviet Union and Russia disbanded and became one of eleven new independent states. A turbulent time followed, characterise by politic and economic reforms. Today Russian is a market-orientated country with general free elections and multipart system. The changeover from planned economy to market economy demands changes within many areas, among other things new working and control forms within the public administration.

From plan economy to market economy

The Soviet Union was a very ineffective construction, mainly because of the missing market mechanism. The centralised decisions make the inventions get foothold in a small extent for the country. The Soviet Union couldn’t keep up with the more developed countries in the west. To some extent it, was compensated through iron hard intern control and an army that was prepared to subdue all opposition in the more and more unruly empire as controlled by Soviet. But the threat the strong military power to the world became less trustworth when leaders such as Ronald Reagan (THE USA) and Margaret Thatcher (Great Britain) bet on to meet the challenge and rebuild the West defence, so the Western not had to bow in for The Soviet threats. This lead to the situation that the Soviet-Union in the end of the 80’s couldn’t keep up in the arms race, just because of the market economy’s superiority. When Reagan and Thatcher raised the military costs from five to six percent per year, Gorbatjov realised that there was no chance for The Soviet to compete

with compete with them, because the military costs already took up to 30-35 percent of the country’s production. The conclusion for Gorbatjov was the relaxation politic and that could be reached if he made concession for the human rights. When an increasing number of Russians had the right to expres their own opinions without being affected of reprisals the regime fell and when it fell the plan economize was an obvious step.

The so-called oligarchy’s

What one usually calls oligarch is an exclusive group of rich people. Their income and expense is well preserved secrets. But one knows that they collect millions dollars per month. The differences between them and the rich citizens is, that the oligarchy’s stakes an important part of their incredible income to get power, economic power and power over the mass media. During Boris Jeltsin’s government the oligarchy ruled the country baling money into The Kremlin. Of course against guaranties that their fabulous wealth or sources to there enrich should never be exposed to any juridical review. It was from this little clique Boris Jeltsin got his money for the presidental campaign in 1996, when he went from a couple of percent in January to an comfortable victory with 54 percent of the votes in June the same year. Such is the capitalism in Russia. A capitalism whose greediness and rawness not notices any borders.

Industry and finance

To promote the transition for market economy in Russia courses for company leaders have been carried out in several rounds. A head direction is to support the capacity and competence development at The Russian institute, with responsibility for an economical and financial education. One successful example is the Kalingrad International Business School. Through the Start East program Swedish small and medium sized companies can get beneficial loans to establish themselves in Baltic, Russia or Ukraine. The support comes to 30 percent of the calculated cost and first of all referred to the education for local employers. Until the spring of 1997 sixty-five Swedish companies allotted totally two and an half million dollars for cooperation projects with Russian companies. Provisions, metal and metal goods, business posts and furniture are the most common industries for cooperation.