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Abstract
Wage, price, and monetary policies during the Gorbachev years have been most
responsible for the food crisis in the republics of the former USSR, not problems in
agricultural production. These non-agricultural policies distorted demand, weakened
the distribution system, and created inflationary macroeconomic imbalance. In 1991,
though, these conditions finally began to affect the supply side of the economy, causing
output, not onlY In agricu ture but across sectors, to fall. The main short-run
objective of the ambitious reform program begun by the Russian Republic in January
1992 is to restore macroeconomic balance and thereby eliminate the inflationary preshe