ABSTRACT
The shock therapy strategy of economic transformation, which independent Russia adopted, is often identified with a trilogy of specific economic policies: liberalization (that is, freeing) of prices, stabilization of the economy through monetary and fiscal policies, 1 and privatization of state enterprises. But shock therapy is actually broader than that. Shock therapy's name derives partly from one of its most important features: the call for a very rapid transformation of the economy. The huge job of transforming the state socialist system into a capitalist market system was to be carried out as rapidly as possible - within a few years. An entire set of radically new policies were to be introduced simultaneously rather than in sequence. 2
