On October 28, 1991, just months before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, at a time when the Communist Party was weakened by internal divisions, inflationary pressure was rising and the deficit stood at 20 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), Boris Yeltsin addressed the Congress of Peoples' Deputies of the Russian Federation, calling for major reform. It was too late for “small steps.” “Resorting to deeds, not words, Russians had to begin extricating themselves from the swamp that was pulling them in deeper and deeper. Only a ‘large-scale reformist breakthrough’ could save Russia's economy from disintegration, its people from poverty, and its state from collapse.”

Crisis opens a window of opportunity for long overdue reforms, including the reorganization of agricultural production. That crisis facilitates macroeconomic reform is a well-understood concept. Interests blocking inflation control in democratic countries of Latin America, for example, where there are recurring bouts of hyperinflation, yield to reform pressures when the national interest is paramount. Lobbies can also block liberalizing reform in authoritarian regimes, where conflict will arise in the supply of public goods. In Russia, which has experienced authoritarian rule over much of the past two centuries, to produce a major reform or change in the laws has nearly always required a serious crisis.