much of the information about the alleged power of the Soviet Union not been shrouded in a cloud of secrecy, the military-industrial complex might have found it much more difficult to make a credible case supporting the vast expansion of the defense industry. Instead, more resources might have gone into education, infrastructure, research and development—more productive expenditures. The need for secrecy in connection with the payment of bribes has an additional damaging effect on the internal system of checks and balances which societies have developed to guard against the abuse of power and without which corruption can grow without restraint. Secrecy will, in turn, force officials and business executives to keep others in the dark, undermining morale within the organization. According to Brademas and Heimann (1998, p. 21), in Italy “payoffs to political parties started at 5 percent of the price of government contracts, then escalated to 8, 10, and finally 15 percent. As the amounts involved shot up, the funds were no longer restricted to political parties. Instead, they went increasingly to the personal accounts of leading politicians. The more egregious the system, the more inevitable the ultimate explosion.”

# **_Betrayal of trust_**

Because corruption is a betrayal of trust it greatly diminishes the legitimacy of the state and moral stature of the bureaucracy in the eyes of the population. While efforts will be made to shroud such corrupt transactions in secrecy, often, particularly when the opportunities for bribery are linked to some government-inspired initiative, the relevant details will leak out and will tarnish the reputation of the government, thereby damaging its credibility and limiting its ability to become a constructive agent of change in other areas of policy. Corrupt governments will have a much tougher time—without resorting to repression—to continue to be credible enforcers of contracts and protectors of property rights. According to Bardhan (1997, p. 1341) the loss of respect associated with corruption will often degenerate into “disloyalty and thievery among public officials.” And, as noted earlier, they will have difficulties in persuading individuals and businesses to pay their taxes. With trust betrayed, what often follows is popular discontent. Evidence from the Gallup World Poll was recently used by Clausen, Kraay and Nyiri (2011) to prove that there is a strong negative correlation (with a causal explanation, at least in part) between corruption and confidence in political institutions.

This can sometimes be used by unscrupulous politicians to fan political passions, it has often led to pronounced shifts in the relative strength of ruling parties and contributed to greater political instability; in more extreme cases, as noted by Noonan (p. 700) it can precipitate coups and violent revolutions. During the Cold War, instances of corruption in the capitalist West were used by Communists to cynically lure converts into the Communist cause. Of course, pervasive corruption in the Soviet Union and its satellites was itself a precipitating factor in explaining Communism’s ultimate and final collapse.

In Russia, Ukraine and other transition economies, corruption did much to weaken and slow down the transition to more democratic forms of governance. During my years in Moscow I met with many liberal-minded Russians who had found Gorbachev's indecisiveness on economic issues deeply frustrating, who felt that the future of Russia would ultimately depend on the extent 24