The confiscation reform of January 1991, which in the Soviet Union is usually called "Pavlovskaya" after the name of the first and last prime minister of the USSR, was considered by many to be one of the reasons for the failure of the "August coup" of the State Emergency Committee and the collapse of the superpower. Today, when the flywheel of the second wave of the economic crisis is spinning in the world, these events acquire a special connotation.

At the last line

The beginning of 1991 did not promise anything good to the Soviet Union, which was bursting at the seams.

The world's largest superpower was rapidly and confidently heading towards its collapse. On the national outskirts of the Empire, inter-ethnic clashes flared up, the population of one-sixth of the land choked in giant lines for everything in the world, the restriction on the sale of high-quality alcohol forced the traditionally drinking Soviet people to stubbornly suppress everything that even remotely resembled an alcoholic drink and unrestrainedly become an inveterate drunkard from a surrogate. Economic reforms stalled completely, perestroika failed, glasnost finished off the exposed Stalinist remains of the CPSU.

The deficit was global. The people no longer wanted circuses - if only bread. Apartment thieves stopped taking worn out things from houses and switched to the contents of refrigerators. Crime went to cooperation with the guilds and the authorities, turning into the Soviet mafia. From the first cooperators grew the first millionaires. Of the last raiders - the first businessmen.

The army and police were decomposing along with society, not understanding whom to defend and for whom to fight. There were persistent rumors among the people about the withdrawal of the "gold of the party" abroad and investing it in profitable foreign companies. Society looked to the West with hope, the West favorably encouraged the solemn procession to the abyss of the Empire competing with it.

Half-starved, half-dressed, angry from the surging truth, a hopelessly sick country rolled into the 90s of the XX century.

The transition from a planned economy to a market economy at the turn of 1980-1990 in a huge half-starved country, accustomed to shortages and queues from childhood, was extremely painful and with great material sacrifices for the population. Almost 300 million inhabitants, with the exception of a thin stratum of the party and regional elites, could not provide themselves adequately with food and industrial goods. Empty store shelves became a familiar sight for the Soviet people of the late USSR, and modest salaries did not allow them to buy food at expensive collective farm markets and in the first commercial "lump" stores.

At the same time, it is difficult to call the citizens of the USSR at the end of socialism a "consumer society" that required a large amount of material goods. People lived from paycheck to paycheck, striving to provide their families first of all with decent food, and secondly - with a roof over their heads.

Discontent and anger grew among the broad masses, threatening to turn into hunger riots against any government that would not be able to feed them in the first place and provide them with essential goods. The salary, however, was then paid carefully - its delay could definitely become a detonator for a social explosion. But the presence of constantly depreciating "wooden" rubles on hand in the absence of goods in stores made them meaningless waste paper.

According to Doctor of Economics, Professor of the Southern Federal University Vyacheslav Volchik, "there was an excess money supply, the nature of which was in the growing dysfunctions of the institutions of the planned economy. Chaotic and inconsistent market reforms destroyed the central planning system, but almost did not contribute to the creation of market mechanisms of regulation and institutions" .

"There is no preparation for reform"

The official reason for the financial reform was the fight against counterfeit banknotes "thrown by enemies from abroad", as well as the unearned income of citizens. So it was easier to explain the idea from the point of view of the usual Soviet ideology of those years. Unofficially, everyone understood perfectly well that it was necessary to get rid of the excess money supply printed at the end of the 1980s in order to fulfill social guarantees that had accumulated in the hands of the population and dispersed the shortage of consumer goods.

The main driver of the reform was the 53-year-old Finance Minister Valentin Pavlov, who called himself a supporter of "state capitalism." Since August 1986, he headed the USSR State Committee on Prices and was aware not of the ideological, but of the real state of affairs, and had long been looking for various ways to withdraw funds from the population that were not backed by goods.

About a dozen different concepts appeared as options, from those already tested in other countries, to the most paradoxical. One of them, for example, provided for the introduction of so-called "parallel money" on the model of the gold chervonets of the 1920s, but in non-cash circulation. The other is a simple confiscatory annulment of all old money without their exchange and the mechanism of credit emission regulation (based on the experience of the Federal Republic of Germany and the harsh reform of 1948 by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who effectively eliminated the "black market" in this way). The third is a compromise in the form of a compensatory exchange with a change in the scale of the national currency and the withdrawal of savings in excess of a strictly established amount of money.

The reform was necessary, - says Vyacheslav Volchik, - But the reform should not be only monetary. Deep structural reforms in the economy were long overdue in the USSR at that time. These are, first of all, reforms in the sphere of economic coordination and pricing. It was necessary to start "cultivating" market institutions, which would subsequently allow the formation of markets not only for consumer goods, but also for production factors.

Valentin Pavlov himself, having come to the post of Minister of Finance in July 1989, constantly rushed about the idea of ​​reform, which, according to his idea, should not only be limited to the withdrawal of excess money supply, but also lead to higher prices, taking into account the cost of goods and services. Moreover, the minister especially insisted on carrying out the exchange as soon as possible, so that the money savings stored by citizens not in a bank, but "in a jar" either did not have time or could not be returned in full. The Ministry of Finance had no doubt that the vast majority of the population had nothing to save from meager salaries - only "dishonest people" are capable of keeping stash in large denominations under their pillows.

In reality, the problems with inflation and the impoverishment of the population began in 1988 with the advent of cooperatives, says Mikhail Khazin, a well-known economist and head of an expert consulting company. - Not from each particular cooperator, but from the model itself, under which it was possible to pump money out of state enterprises through cooperatives. In order to finance social projects during the crisis, the state printed quite a lot of money in the late 1980s. They also concentrated among part of the population, to put it mildly, not quite legally. And the Pavlovian reform, among other things, was supposed to cut off this money.

At the same time, the minister resorted to the old "horror story", submitting in the summer of 1990 a secret note to President Mikhail Gorbachev and Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers Nikolai Ryzhkov. In it, he explained the need to exchange precisely 50- and 100-ruble banknotes of the 1961 model by the fact that these banknotes were allegedly exported in large quantities abroad, and in the USSR they were concentrated in the hands of shadow capital. The Chairman of the Council of Ministers requested customs to cross the border in cash. From there he was informed that, as a rule, scarlet ten-ruble bills, and not yellowish "hundreds", are flowing out of the country.

Bickering over the radicalization of reforms first sent Ryzhkov to the hospital with a massive heart attack, and from there to the resignation of the rapidly declining Gorbachev, who needed a man who would take responsibility for future unpopular steps.

The ambitious Valentin Pavlov, with his reform, was just perfect for this role. He was approved as prime minister on January 14, 1991. Exactly the next day after the assault by the Alpha group of the Vilnius television center, which resulted in numerous casualties among the population of the Lithuanian capital. Later, the investigation will establish that provocateurs from the nationalist movement "Sajudis" were shooting at the back of the civilian population from the roofs of houses. But at that time, the coming to the leadership of the government of the "state capitalist" was already firmly associated with 15 killed and 600 wounded in Vilnius. However, the future reformer Valentin Pavlov himself immediately began leading the cabinet with outright disinformation.

There is no preparation for the reform, - he assured from a high rostrum. - Firstly, the monetary reform is only part of a set of measures aimed at improving the economic situation, and its implementation in isolation without solving other problems will lead to nothing. Secondly, the implementation of the reform will cost the state about 5 billion rubles. Thirdly, the existing capacities for issuing banknotes make it possible to accumulate the required amount of new money within three years.

Journalists from business publications pointed out to the prime minister sealed piles of banknotes, which they managed to capture in photos in various banks, and referred to unnamed sources in the financial sector. But "once lied" Pavlov was echoed by the then chairman of the board of the State Bank of the USSR Viktor Gerashchenko, who at all angles denied rumors about the upcoming reform.

Then all this lies were explained by the "high secrecy of the operation."

No faith, no hope, no love

Accustomed to traditional ideological hypocrisy, little versed in the market economy, the country vaguely suspected some trick on the part of the leading and guiding party. The first persons of the state no longer aroused confidence among ordinary Soviet citizens. Information about the preparation of the monetary reform leaked out from financial institutions through acquaintances, and some managed to exchange "fifty kopecks" and "hundreds" ahead of time. One of the Rostov crime bosses, who asked to be called Garik, told an RG correspondent that two days before the announcement of the reform, one of the "sponsored" cooperators showed him a home secretary filled to the brim with small banknotes exchanged by "shadow" through banking channels. On the eve of the "action" part of the population managed to dump part of the "reformed" cash at the cash desks of the subway, railway stations, taxi drivers, and shops. But those were few.

Everyone suspected a future reform, but no one knew exactly when and how it would be carried out. This was discussed in transport, in production, in collective farms, universities, expeditions, in the army, but most of those discussing it agreed that, on the one hand, "there seems to be nothing to save", on the other, "they will still be deceived." The truth, of course, was out there somewhere.

On January 22, President Gorbachev signed a decree withdrawing the 1961 50 and 100 ruble banknotes from circulation and exchanging them for smaller or newer banknotes. At the same time, the exchange of cash in the amount of up to 1,000 rubles was carried out only for three days - from Wednesday to Friday, January 23-25, and cash withdrawals from Sberbank were limited to 500 rubles. Until the end of March, it was possible to change money already in special commissions, which considered each case that did not meet the deadlines separately (business trip, expedition, state of health, etc.). At the same time, it was necessary to prove where the person got the amount of more than 1 thousand rubles from.

The presidential decree was read at 21.00 in the evening edition of the Vremya program, when almost all financial institutions and shops were already closed.

The smartest in a panic rushed to save their blood. Who sent a transfer in the name of his wife to all the "scorched" banknotes, who bought several train or plane tickets for different flights, in order to return them later. But only a few managed to do this, because it was only until midnight.

Since Wednesday morning, giant queues lined up at the savings banks, in which there were "delegates" from labor collectives sent to change the money of entire teams. The stake of the organizers of the reform on the "working day" partially justified itself - many were physically unable to get from the machine to the bank, to their hiding places and treasures.

However, somewhere the local authorities went to meet the workers, and the money was changed at the post office, at the factory. Scuffles arose in the queues, someone became ill, and then the government cursed what the world stands on.

According to the same Garik, who has a 17-year "experience" of staying in remote places behind him, in a Rostov strict regime colony, its head was offered a bribe in the amount of 500 thousand rubles so that he would let one of the local prisoners go for a day under "honest thieves" "priseltsev" in order to change the prison "common fund". He refused. Why the boss did not take such an impressive jackpot, one can only guess. Maybe professional pride, which had not yet become an anachronism, really leaped up? Or maybe he was just scared, considered it a subtle provocation. A bribe for such an amount was drawn to a "execution" article with any shoulder straps.

The way the reform was carried out was absolutely wrong from today's point of view, Vyacheslav Volchik believes. - But if you think like the then Soviet leadership, then there was simply no other way to carry out monetary reform. Almost all Soviet reforms were confiscatory in nature. And the 1991 reform was no exception.

As a result, about 14 billion rubles were withdrawn from circulation, although according to the plan of the organizers of the reform, 51.5 out of 133 billion cash banknotes (39 percent) were subject to exchange.

At the same time, deposits in the Savings Bank were frozen. They accrued 40 percent per annum, but the money could be received in cash ... only next year. Everyone remembers what happened to them after January 1, 1992.

In addition, the national income decreased by 20 percent compared to 1990, and the state budget deficit in 1991 was, according to various estimates, from 20 to 30 percent of the gross domestic product.

Interestingly, after the completion of the exchange, Prime Minister Pavlov published in the press accusations against Western banks of coordinated activities to disrupt money circulation in the USSR. Moreover, as part of the second stage of the reform, also without prior announcement, since April 2, prices for consumer goods in the USSR have tripled, which have remained stable for decades. This led to a complete loss of all confidence in the government among the population, who considered themselves robbed twice. According to public opinion polls, it was the "Pavlovian reform" that served as one of the main reasons for the failure of the coup attempt, undertaken by the conservative part of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee and the government in August 1991. It is noteworthy that the failed reformer Valentin Pavlov also appeared in the GKChP at that time ...

Maybe it will seem ambiguous, - he later recalled, - but the point is that very few people at that time understood and believed that the issue was not about ideology. The question is not about forms of ownership, management, reforms, but the question is about the state.

But that was all later. And then, at the end of January 1991, the inhabitants of the country said goodbye not only to the missing "stash", but also to part of their common past. Residents of Vladikavkaz (just renamed from the Soviet Ordzhonikidze) still remember how on the morning of January 26, 1991, a day after the cessation of the exchange of banknotes, a well-dressed man with a suitcase approached the State Bank building. He opened it, dumped a mountain of fifty rubles into the snow and set it on fire for the amusement of passers-by. Together with them burned in the flame of the most expensive fire in North Ossetia and faith in "the mind, honor and conscience of our era."

On January 22, 1991, the President of the USSR Gorbachev issued a decree according to which the old banknotes of the 1961 model with a face value of 50 and 100 rubles should be withdrawn from circulation. Money that had lost its power could be exchanged, but with significant restrictions. Only three days were allotted for this (from January 23 to 25). At the same time, only 1,000 rubles per person could be exchanged (the rest of the money could theoretically be exchanged only by contacting special commissions that operated until March 1991).

In addition, the restrictions affected the possibility of withdrawing money from savings books, where many Soviet citizens kept their savings. It was allowed to withdraw no more than 500 rubles per month.

The idea of ​​carrying out this monetary reform belonged to Valentin Sergeevich Pavlov, who at that time held the post of Minister of Finance of the USSR. Six days before the signing of the scandalous decree, he was appointed to a new post - the Prime Minister of the USSR. That is why the reform was soon nicknamed Pavlovskaya.

His name is associated primarily with the confiscatory monetary reform, which, against the backdrop of the collapsing USSR, led to a complete loss of confidence in the government. Gazeta.Ru recalls why the Pavlovian reform happened and what it led to.

Shock therapy

On January 22, 1991, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev signed a decree according to which the old banknotes of the 1961 model with a face value of 50 and 100 rubles were withdrawn from circulation. The reform was announced on the Vremya program at 9 pm - most banks and shops were closed. From midnight, these banknotes stopped circulation. In three days it was necessary to have time to exchange the "old" money, but not more than 1000 rubles. The restrictions also affected the ability to withdraw money from passbooks - no more than 500 rubles per month.

The initiator of the reform, Valentin Pavlov, eight days before the signing of the decree, became the prime minister of the USSR. The shock impact of the confiscation on the population is also connected with the assurances of Pavlov, who many times before the decree stated that no preparations were being made for the reform.

“There is no preparation for reform. Firstly, monetary reform is only part of a set of measures aimed at improving the economic situation, and its implementation in isolation without solving other problems will lead to nothing. Secondly, the implementation of the reform will cost the state about 5 billion rubles. Thirdly, the existing capacities for issuing banknotes make it possible to accumulate the necessary amount of new money for at least three years, ”Kommersant quoted Pavlov on January 7.

On the same day, the newspaper published an article “Valentin Pavlov said that there would be no monetary reform. Oh well". A few days later, "well, well" was fully confirmed, Kommersant wrote.

The reform hit thousands of people, many of whom lost many years of savings. The one-time monetary reform, carried out suddenly and without warning, became the actual confiscation of money from the population. Only a few managed to exchange "fifty kopecks" and "hundreds" in advance, not trusting Pavlov's promises, or on the same evening, until "the carriage turned into a pumpkin." Someone then managed to pay off the taxi driver, someone managed to resort to other measures.

“Immediately after the message in the Vremya program, as eyewitnesses say, impatient citizens rushed to the central telegraph office to process postal orders, to railway stations - to the ticket offices, where they bought “whole” carriages in order to return the tickets later. Already on the night of January 22-23, queues began to line up at the savings banks. By morning, they had grown tenfold,” the Izvestia newspaper wrote on January 23.

zero trust

The seized banknotes were replaced by new ones of 1991. Money was changed at Sberbank, less often at the place of work and at post offices. There was excitement and panic. Many simply did not have time to exchange money - they could not escape from work, were on a business trip, were in the hospital, and so on - and lost their savings.

“We can say that the country did not work these days. In the first two days, panic reigned in society - people actually took the savings banks by storm. It turned out that on the eve of the “Pavlovian” reform, salaries were issued in 50- and 100-ruble bills, which were just to be replaced. These days were especially exciting for the elderly, who were afraid of not having time to turn in their old money,” writes historian Roman Kirsanov in his book “Perestroika. "New Thinking" in the banking system of the USSR.

The monetary reform marked the intensification of the crisis of people's confidence in the authorities. The failed perestroika, the terrible deficit and poverty gave rise to bitterness and a wary attitude towards any actions of the authorities.

As part of the second stage of the reform, since April 2, prices for consumer goods have increased by two to three times. It happened just as suddenly and without warning, like the exchange of banknotes. This was perceived by the population as a second robbery. According to public opinion polls, it was the “Pavlovian reform” that served as one of the main reasons for the failure of the coup attempt undertaken by the conservative part of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee and the government in August 1991, Rossiyskaya Gazeta wrote.

Fiasco on all fronts

The monetary reform was carried out under the slogan of combating counterfeit rubles imported from abroad. In addition, according to Pavlov, she had to leave the shadow sector of the economy without money and cancel the funds illegally withdrawn from the country. However, the real reason is getting rid of excess cash, which was in the hands of the population and exacerbated the shortage of consumer goods.

The amount of money in circulation on January 1, 1986, should have been about 42 billion rubles, but in reality there were 71 billion rubles in circulation, Kirsanov calculated, using the coefficient of normal growth in the money supply of the State Bank. By 1988, the surplus had already reached 35 billion rubles.

An attempt to stabilize the circulation of cash and partially solve the problem of shortages in the USSR commodity market failed. Pavlov said that the exchange of banknotes was only a small part of the planned monetary reform. The Prime Minister was preparing a comprehensive pricing reform - the normalization of monetary circulation would be followed by a phased liberalization of prices. But from this plan it was possible to carry out only the exchange of banknotes.

It also failed to “punish” the citizens associated with the illegal economy.

Dealers of the "shadow" economy managed to place money in savings banks or successfully exchanged old banknotes for new ones.

Due to the fact that the entire population was busy exchanging money, losses in production were also recorded, Kirsanov notes. It was possible to withdraw only 8-9 billion rubles, according to economist Leonid Grigoriev, who was then a member of the Commission on Economic Reform of the USSR Government. Whereas the goal was to withdraw 81.5 billion rubles from circulation - to reduce the money supply from 133 billion to 51.5 billion. In addition, the current issue exceeded the volume of withdrawn money. The national income in comparison with 1990 decreased by 20%, the state budget deficit increased to 20-30% of GDP.

The problem with food was not resolved, but worsened. The physical volume of retail trade turnover in January-September 1991 decreased by 12% compared to the same period in 1990, Viktor Gerashchenko, chairman of the State Bank, reported to the State Council at the time. The consumer market was in short supply for almost all types of goods.

The Pavlovian reform turned out to be scandalous and ineffective and caused significant damage to the population. The failure of the coup d'état is also associated with the monetary reform. In August 1991, Pavlov was one of the organizers of the failed GKChP. On August 23, Pavlov was arrested, and on August 28, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR approved his resignation. In 1993, the former Prime Minister of the USSR was amnestied. The next few years he worked in banks. In 2003 he died of a stroke.

Prerequisites for the reform The initiator of the confiscation currency reform was Finance Minister Valentin Sergeevich Pavlov. He intended to stabilize money circulation in the USSR. January 14, 1991, shortly before the start of the monetary reform, he received a promotion - was appointed Prime Minister of the USSR. Thus, the desire of the country's leadership to reform the financial and political system was officially enshrined. Terms of the reform On January 22, 1991, President of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev signed the "Decree on the withdrawal from circulation and the exchange of 50- and 100-ruble banknotes of the 1961 model." The exchange of seized banknotes was accompanied by severe restrictions: Compressed terms of exchange - three days from January 23 to 25 (from Wednesday to Friday). No more than 1,000 rubles per person - the possibility of exchanging the remaining banknotes was considered by special commissions until the end of March 1991. In total, 51.5 billion rubles out of 133 billion in cash were subject to exchange, or about 39 percent of the total cash supply. At the same time, the amount of cash available for withdrawal from the Savings Bank of the USSR was limited to no more than 500 rubles. Results of the reform The government's plans were only partially realized: the confiscation procedure made it possible to withdraw from circulation 14 billion cash rubles (approximately 10.5 percent of the total, or slightly less than 17.1 percent of the planned withdrawal of 81.5 billion). The surprise effect of the reform was supposed to help in the fight against speculation, unearned income, counterfeiting, smuggling and corruption, but in practice the main consequence of the reform was the loss of public confidence in the actions of the government. The unpopular "shock" reforms carried out in the USSR under the leadership of Pavlov continued. From April 2, just as unexpectedly, new prices were set in the USSR, which were about 3 times higher than the previous ones. Inflation was 12-35% per month. At the end of 1992, one dollar cost 415 rubles. Many politicians and historians believe that the political and financial reforms carried out in the USSR in 1991 finally undermined the confidence of the citizens of the USSR in the union leadership and had a significant impact on subsequent events (August coup, Belovezhskaya agreement). These reforms are considered one of the main reasons for the growth in 1991 of the political popularity of the leaders of the union republics, as well as the strengthening of centrifugal sentiments between them, which ultimately led to the collapse of the USSR. In order to carry out the reform, new banknotes of 50 and 100 rubles of the 1991 model were issued. Banknotes of the 1991 sample in denominations of 1, 3, 5, 10, 200, 500 and 1000 rubles were issued later. Old banknotes of 1, 3, 5, 10 and 25 rubles of the 1961 sample and all Soviet coins that were in circulation continued to circulate on a par with the new ones, of the 1991 sample. The new banknote of 25 rubles was not issued. Also, the State Bank of the USSR issued new coins of the 1991 sample, which differed from the previous sizes, with a denomination of 10 kopecks (iron), 50 kopecks (nickel alloy), 1 ruble (nickel alloy), 5, 10 rubles (bimetal). Confiscation monetary reform, later named "Pavlovskaya", in honor of the Minister of Finance of the USSR Pavlov Valentin Sergeevich. Within three days of January, citizens could exchange 50- and 100-ruble bills for new ones. It was possible to exchange only in cash the amount up to 1000 rubles. In Sberbank, only 500 rubles could be received from a deposit. new. Less than two weeks before this event, Pavlov issued a statement that there would be no monetary reform. According to the authorities, this measure was supposed to freeze unearned income, funds of speculators, corrupt officials, shadow businesses and counterfeit money, and as a result, compress the money supply and stop inflation. At the same time, deposits in Sberbank were frozen, and on April 1 there was an increase in prices throughout the country. 40% was accrued on frozen deposits, money could be received in cash only next year. At the same time, as a result, shock therapy led to hyperinflation, which in 1992 alone amounted to 2,600% and devalued citizens' savings in Sberbank.

On January 22, 1991, the last Soviet monetary reform began, which received the name "Pavlovskaya" in honor of its creator, Minister of Finance, and later Prime Minister of the USSR Valentin Pavlov. It was a confiscatory monetary reform, which aimed to get rid of the "extra" money supply that was in cash circulation, and at least partially solve the problem of shortages in the USSR commodity market. The formal reason for the reform was declared to be the fight against counterfeit rubles allegedly imported into the USSR from abroad.

On January 22, 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev signed the Decree "On the termination of acceptance for payment of banknotes of the State Bank of the USSR in denominations of 50 and 100 rubles of the 1961 model and the restriction of the issuance of cash from citizens' deposits." The signing of the Decree was announced in the Vremya program, when almost all financial institutions and shops were already closed.

After the completion of the exchange of big money, Pavlov appeared in the press with accusations against Western banks of coordinated activities to disrupt money circulation in the USSR.

As a result of the reforms, the government's plans were only partially realized: the confiscation procedure made it possible to withdraw 14 billion cash rubles from circulation (approximately 10.5% of the total mass, or slightly less than 17.1% of the 81.5 billion planned for withdrawal).

On April 2, 1991, prices for foodstuffs, transport, and utilities were increased by 2-4 times.

In December 1991, experts from the Kommersant newspaper summed up the results of the entire 1991 and found that, taking into account the Pavlovian reform, prices increased 7.8 times over the year. At the same time, the greatest contribution to the price race was made by no means by market factors, but by various kinds of force majeure circumstances, such as the exchange of banknotes and official statements about upcoming cataclysms in monetary circulation.

There was a drop in the living standards of the population. By the end of 1991, the Soviet economy was in a catastrophic situation. The fall in production accelerated. The national income compared to 1990 has decreased by 20%. The state budget deficit, i.e., the excess of government spending over income, was, according to various estimates, from 20% to 30% of gross domestic product (GDP). The growth of the money supply in the country threatened to lose state control over the financial system and hyperinflation, i.e. inflation over 50% per month, which could paralyze the entire economy.

The main consequence of the reform was the loss of public confidence in the actions of the government. Many politicians and historians believe that the political and financial reforms carried out in the USSR in 1991 finally undermined the confidence of the citizens of the USSR in the union leadership and had a significant impact on subsequent events (the August putsch, the Belovezhskaya agreement).

The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources