Russia's Capitalist Revolution: Why Market Reform Succeeded and Democracy Failed
The central paradox about contemporary Russia is why capitalism has taken root, but democracy has not. Anders Aslund provides a crisp, comprehensive, and compelling answer. Russia s Capitalist Revolution will become a classic overnight, the standard by which all future books on the last two decades of Soviet and Russian history will be judged. --MICHAEL McFAUL, director, Center on Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law, Stanford UniversityAnders Aslund has done for the collapse of Russian communism what E. H.Carr did for the Bolshevik Revolution. In a series of seminal contributions, he takes you through the events, helps you distinguish the personalities from the policies, and explains what worked and for whom. You should really read all of Aslund s collected works on the subject, which must run to at least as many pages as Carr s opus. But if you would like all the key ideas in one easy to read place, with clear policy implications, and a view of the future that is part encouraging and part chilling, this volume is for you. --SIMON JOHNSON, director, Research Department, International Monetary FundAnders Aslund s Russia s Capitalist Revolution is an exceptionally well-informed account of Russia s tortuous evolution since the reforms of Gorbachev. It reveals why the economic reforms succeeded while the political democratization, began in the 1990s, did not. Based on both wide reading and personal experiences in Russia, it is an authoritative study of a subject of great importance not only to Russians but the rest of the world. --RICHARD PIPES, Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of History Emeritus, Harvard University