Voucher privatization (Russia 1992-1994)

The privatization took place on a much wider scale in the early 1990s, when the government of Russia
deliberately set a goal to sell its assets out. As the Soviet Union
collapsed, the government was forced to manage the huge and inefficient
state enterprise sector inherited from the Soviet ecomomy. Privatization was carried out by the State Committee for State Property Management of the Russian Federation
under Anatoly Chubais with the goal to transform the enterprises into
profit-seeking businesses, not dependent on government subsidies for
their survival. To distribute property quickly and to win popular
support, the reformers decided to rely mostly on the mechanism of free voucher privatization, earlier implemented in Czechoslovakia,
and on the nearly free transfer of shares to employees, as it was
believed that the sell of property instead of the free transfer would
have almost certainly resulted in a further concentration of ownership
among the mafia and the former Soviet political and industrial elite, which they sought to avoid. Nevertheless, contrary to the government's expectations, insiders
managed to have acquired control over most of the assets, which
remained largely dependent on the state budget for years to come. Thus
the initial objectives have not been fully achieved, although a great
deal of assets became privatized remarkably quickly and provided some
basis for market competition. The voucher privatization took place in
1992-1994. The vouchers, each corresponding to a share in the national
wealth, were distributed equally among the population, including
minors. They could be exchanged for shares in the enterprises to be
privatized. Most people, however, weren't well-informed and/or were
very poor and were quick to sell the vouchers for money, unprepared
and/or unwilling to invest^{[citation needed]}.
Most vouchers and hence most shares ended up acquired by the management
of the enterprises. Although Russia's initial privatization legislation
attracted widespread popular support^{[citation needed]}
as it promised to distribute the national wealth among the general
public and ordinary employees of the privatized enterprises, eventually
the public felt deceived, and Anatoly Chubais became one of the most odious public figures in modern Russia. (source wikipedia)