The hallelujah chorus had begun even before the decision to sack privatization chief Vladimir Polevanov was made official Tuesday. Installed by people fundamentally opposed to the Russian sell-off program, his presence at the State Property Committee was all-around bad news for the economy.


This is not to say that the debate over privatization began only when Polevanov took the post last November, nor that it will disappear now he has gone. The struggle over the redistribution of Soviet property came to a head precisely because it is now, in the second stage of the program, that the serious money is to be made.


Voucher privatization is considered a success by many Western analysts because it got the ball rolling. Some 40 million Russians were made into shareholders by the program -- a phenomenal number by any nation's standards -- and nearly 70 percent of the country's enterprises were transferred into private hands in a short space of time.


Critics, among them Polevanov's supporters in the State Duma, argue that these numbers are meaningless, that all voucher privatization achieved was the transfer of title to the national wealth to undeserving factory directors or criminals -- in many cases one and the same. Though oversimplified, that argument has some truth.


But voucher privatization was merely a first step toward making individuals, rather than the state, responsible for property. More important is the present second step in the process, when enterprises are put on the block for cash bidders and stand to draw real money and strategic investors capable of restructuring them. To have a man of Polevanov's beliefs in charge of this process promised to grind it to a near halt and ensure that in the future bureaucrats in Moscow would control who got the spoils.


It would be foolish to argue that privatization has been fair, pretty, free of corruption or even democratic. The State Duma rejected stage two of the program last summer, and privatization continues only because it has been driven through by a highly undemocratic presidential decree.


But what is the alternative Polevanov offered? Not fairer privatization, but a different distribution of control over property with more scope for corruption and less for enterprise. He also offered a xenophobic attitude to foreign investors, in many cases the only ones able to provide the money and expertise to turn ailing factories around.


The sacking of Polevanov can only bring relief to anyone trying to start or run a private business in Russia. It may also help to offset some of the damage caused to the investment climate since last November. The one thing that it cannot do, unfortunately, is end the struggle over privatization.