Voucher privatization in Russia

Privatization check (voucher) of the era of privatization in Russia

Voucher privatization was carried out in 1992-1994. It was preceded by legislative acts of the Supreme Council of the RSFSR adopted in the summer of 1991, which provided for the redemption of state-owned enterprises and their transformation into joint-stock companies. To streamline privatization, the law “On registered privatization accounts and deposits in the RSFSR” was adopted, according to which every citizen of Russia received a registered privatization account, to which money should be credited to pay for the privatized state property. The law did not allow the sale of privatization deposits to other persons. This law, however, was not implemented, and voucher privatization was carried out instead.

The practical instructions for privatization were the Decrees of the President of the Russian Federation “On accelerating the privatization of state and municipal enterprises” ( December 29, 1991 ), “On accelerating the privatization of state and municipal enterprises” ( January 29, 1992 ), “On organizational measures to transform state enterprises of voluntary associations of state enterprises into joint stock companies "( July 1, 1992)," On the implementation of the privatization checks system in the Russian Federation "( August 14, 1992)," On the State Program the privatization of state and municipal enterprises in the Russian Federation ”( December 24, 1993 ).

Voucher privatization was controversial. The format of privatization was largely the result of compromises between the Government and the Supreme Council, taking into account the regulations adopted at different times and the interests of different lobbying groups. So, E. Gaidar and A. Chubais were not initially supporters of voucher privatization, offering to abandon it in favor of gradual privatization for money ^[1] . However, the Law of the RSFSR of July 3, 1991 “On the Privatization of State and Municipal Enterprises” provided for privatization using privatized registered accounts. The disadvantage of this decision was its corruption vulnerability: taking into account the pre-emptive right of employees of enterprises to redeem their shares, directors, using pressure on employees, would have wide opportunities to seize control over enterprises. As a compromise between the positions of the Supreme Council and the Government, the checks were anonymized (which brought privatization closer to the market scheme), the right of labor collectives to preemptive redemption of shares was retained ^[1] .

In the summer of 1992, vouchers (privatization checks) were introduced, which were not distributed free of charge to the population. For each voucher, it was necessary to pay 25 rubles, regardless of who received the voucher - an adult or a child. The nominal value of the voucher was 10 thousand rubles. The property of the country's enterprises was estimated at 1,400 billion rubles, and vouchers were issued for this amount. According to the subjective assessment of the head of the State Property Committee Chubais, who led the privatization, one voucher matched the cost of two Volga cars . But it was impossible to buy these cars in exchange for a voucher.

The real market value of a block of shares that could be obtained in exchange for one voucher varied widely depending on the company whose shares were acquired in exchange for a voucher, as well as on the region where this took place. For example, in the Nizhny Novgorod Region one voucher could be exchanged in 1994 for 2,000 shares of RAO Gazprom (their market value in 2008 was about 700 thousand rubles), in the Moscow Region for 700 shares of Gazprom (in 2008 - about 245 thousand rubles), and in Moscow - for 50 shares of Gazprom (17 thousand rubles in 2008). For one voucher, it was also possible to get 7 shares of the GUM Trading House (less than 100 rubles in 2008).

Former Minister of Economics economist Andrei Nechaev commented on the voucher scheme as follows:

From the point of view of the privatization model used, the value of the voucher did not matter. The voucher determined only the right to buy something during privatization. Its real value depended on the specific privatization situation at a particular enterprise. Somewhere on a voucher it was possible to get 3 shares, and somewhere - 300. In this sense, you could write 1 ruble and 100 thousand rubles on it, which would not change its purchasing power by one iota. In my opinion, the idea to equip this security with a denomination belonged to the Supreme Council. To give the face value at least some rational basis, we decided to tie it to the value of fixed assets per capita.

Grigory Yavlinsky explains the lack of a rational basis for the cost of a voucher by the imbalance between the quantity of goods and the money supply in the economy of the RSFSR:

There was another privatization program. The meaning of this program was that the money accumulated by people during the Soviet period should be used to acquire assets. In the hands of the population was about 10 trillion rubles. According to the 2007 exchange rate, all the aggregate savings of the population amounted to about 350-380 billion dollars. My program suggested that this money be used to purchase the means of production, as they say now, of assets. At that time there was a very large imbalance between the amount of money the population had and the mass of goods. What was a commodity was approximately 14 kopecks per 1 ruble of savings. If the privatization program we proposed was implemented, then traditional goods — suits, sausages — would be supplemented with other goods — shops, hairdressers, land, trucks ... everything that is small and medium privatization. A middle class would appear, and no one would consider himself deceived.

The adopted procedure for privatization gave serious advantages to the so-called “red directors”, that is, the heads of enterprises who received these positions in Soviet times. In many cases, the bulk of the shares of the enterprise were in the hands of labor collectives; Using administrative pressure, directors could achieve the desired voting results at shareholders meetings , and subsequently often redeem the share of employees of enterprises, becoming full owners.

However, the ideologists of privatization have repeatedly noted ^{[1] [2] [3]} that the rapid issuance of privatization checks was aimed precisely at limiting the ability of the "red directors" to lobby and conduct privatization according to schemes even more beneficial for them. In November 2004, A. Chubais, in an interview with The Financial Times, said: “The communist leaders had enormous power - political, administrative, financial ... we needed to get rid of them, but we did not have time for this. The bill went not for months, but for days ” ^[4] .

The bulk of the population did not know (or rather, did not understand, due to economic illiteracy, although the purpose of the paper was written directly on it, and the media widely discussed the issue) what to do with vouchers, so they began to be sold to buyers. The price of vouchers was rapidly falling, falling to 3-4 thousand rubles by May 1993. In order to help the implementation of vouchers, voucher investment funds were created that exchanged vouchers for shares of various companies.

The action scheme of check investment funds was approximately the same: funds collected vouchers from the population, participated in a check auction, and bought shares of profitable enterprises for vouchers. Then the shares were sold from the balance of check investment funds to the balance of structures controlled by influential groups in the region (often organized crime) at a low book value, leaving nominal assets in the fund for subsequent actual liquidation.

In many ways, privatization in Russia repeated the history of the privatization of church lands in France during the French Revolution. At that time, the lands of the church were confiscated, and on the basis of these lands (later the former estates of immigrants and lands belonging to the crown were added to the list of lands) appropriations were issued, which subsequently began to be used as money. The lands were subsequently sold at auctions in which prosperous peasants and the bourgeois had an advantage over the poor peasants, which, like in Russia, led to the stratification of society. Of the more recent “privatizations”, it is also of great interest to compare Russian privatization with privatization in Eastern Europe at the same time, as well as with the English privatization of the times of Margaret Thatcher and John Major . So, unlike the Russian one, the English privatization of the 70-80s ensured an inflow to the budget of more than $ 150 billion. Polish privatization began in 1990, and its voucher phase in 1995, Polish citizens became investors of 15 investment funds that managed 512 enterprises countries. In total, in the first 10 years of privatization, about $ 17.8 billion was received in the Polish budget. ^[5]

Numerous critics point out that voucher privatization was dishonest, unfair, and led to an undeserved sharp enrichment of a narrow group of people. In response to this, A. Chubais notes: “We could not choose between“ fair ”and“ dishonest ”privatization, because honest privatization implies clear rules established by a strong state that can enforce laws. In the early 1990s, we had neither the state nor the rule of law ... We had to choose between gangster communism and gangster capitalism ” ^[4] .