Foreign aid was necessary to curtail political upheaval and speed the transition to a democratically oriented market economy. Social reforms needed to be made in macroeconomic stabilization, including interest rates, exchange rates, and the formation of legal, public administration, and institutional mechanisms to execute policy. The International Monetary Fund, therefore, declared that Russia would receive about $25 billion in foreign aid, primarily in the form of loans over a period of five years, as would the smaller republics.