Lost Opportunity: Why Economic Reforms in Russia Have Not Worked - Tapa dura

A lively and highly readable account. [Goldman] draw[s] on his vast knowledge to provide some insights into why reform is so difficult in the Russian context and why some of the efforts of recent years have gone awry.--Barry Bosworth A compelling, meticulous analysis of Boris Yeltsin's unsuccessful attempt to find a workable blueprint for economic reform.

This text provides an analysis of the way in which Boris Yeltsin took on the task of reforming the Russian economy. It describes how the economy, beset by supply blockages that left goods scarce and prices high, lurched from one quick fix to another. Apparatchiks intent on becoming power brokers in the new state, profiteers and the notorious Russian mafia further exploited the confusion, opening the way for a strong showing of national extremists in recent elections. In contrast to the Russian experience, alternative lessons of history from the post-World War II revivals of Japan and Germany to the gradualist approach to a free economy in Hungary come under close review. In an incisive summing-up, the author shows the clash between economics and history that has dogged Russia throughout the centuries, from the October Revolution to the 1990s.