The Russian privatization program has been heralded as the crown jewel of Russia's economic reform. While other aspects of Russia's economic reform have been less successful, privatization has continued unimpeded throughout the first two years of economic reform. On paper, Russian privatization appears to be more successful than any other government privatization program in history. By January 1994, 90,000 state enterprises were privatized.

We can proudly say that at no time in human history has a political movement and ideological trend played such a tremendous transformative role as the international communist and working class movement.

Leonid Brezhnev (World Marxist Review, 8 (1969), p. 4)

Ironically, Brezhnev's observation still holds true today. However, the transformative power of the international communist movement has resulted not from its consolidation, as Brezhnev surmised, but from its disintegration. The "world revolutionary process" predicted by Marx, initiated by Lenin, and promoted for seventy years by the Soviet Union has come to an abrupt halt. Whether temporary or permanent, its present demise has created one of the most fluid historical moments in the twentieth century.