Shock therapy

   Promoted by the world-renowned economist Jeffrey Sachs as the most efficient mechanism for transitioning from a state-controlled economy to the free market, “shock therapy” was applied to Russia in the early years of the Yeltsin administration. The process, conducted under Yegor Gaydar, included elimination of price controls and subsidies, mass privatization through the sale of state assets, and floating the ruble on the international currency market. While the program had worked fairly well in post-Communist Poland, the effects on the Russian Federation were disastrous. In early 2009, the respected British medical journal Lancet estimated that millions of Russians—mostly late-middle-aged men—died as a result of the withering of the country’s welfare and health care systems, unemployment, alcoholism, and rise in crime that accompanied shock therapy.