Guidelines for Aid to the Soviet Union

Publication Date: September 1991

Publisher: Heritage Foundation (Washington, D.C.)

Author(s): William D. Eggers

Research Area: Economics

Keywords: Russia and Eurasia

Type: Report

Coverage: Soviet Union

Abstract:

The political revolution that swept through Eastern Europe a year and a half ago has reached the Soviet Union with stunning speed and finality. The last great empire on Earth is disintegrating rapidly and long-suppressed peoples are tasting the fruits of freedom. There is an understandable urge among many politicians to reward the courageous democrats of Lithuania, Russia, Ukraine and the other republics with showers of cash. However, massive infusions of aid can do little to alleviate pain in an economy that may well decline by 20 percent this year alone. Large-scale aid, moreover, will do nothing to remove the communist economic structures that are at the root of the economic crisis.