To the Market—Under the Cover of the Army?

Abstract

Every routine shortage in our country is accompanied by an upsurge of mass belief in something or other. At the very peak of the detergent shortage, the country agonized in the expectation that, well, Gdlian and Ivanov would arrest the entire Politburo, take back the plundered billions, and hand them out to ordinary workers. Then, when medicines began to be missing from the pharmacies, Chumak and Kashpirov began to work wonders with us on the television, wholesale. The panic over salt and vegetable oil was accompanied by UFO landings everywhere. Now, poultry and bread have become scarce. We have begun to believe in market programs.