Partial Market Reform in the USSR

• Acceleration was the USSR's last plan to save the centrally planned economic system.
• From 1986, officials believed that only some degree of market reform could recover the economy.
• The Law on Individual Economic Activity of November 1986 made it legal for families and individuals to make money from small scale work.
• The 1987 Law on State Enterprise intended to devolve power from central government to factory management, but failed in two ways.
• The 1988 Law on Co-operatives made it legal to set up large scale private companies.
• By 1990, nearly 200,000 private companies had been set up across the USSR.
• Many cooperatives were successful with turnovers increasing from 29.2 million roubles to 1.04 billion roubles in the first year.
• Incomes of those under private companies were two-three times more than those under state enterprise.