Is Russia lost? To read the barrage of op-ed articles, congressional testimony, and political position papers that have flowed from both the left and the right since last summer, one might have concluded that Russia is dead and gone - and the Clinton Administration is to blame. It is true that eight years after the fall of communism, Russia is riddled with corruption, its politics are unstable, and the structures of democracy and free markets have yet to strike deep roots. There is also a resurgent anti-Western element in Russian politics. But Russia is not lost.

Historians will someday write that Russia re-entered the Western community of states as a market democracy at the end of the 20th century. You wouldn't think so, however, from the vituperative and pessimistic tone of most contemporary commentary in the United States about Russia and U.S.-Russian relations. Focusing on lurid accounts of Russian money laundering, cronyism, and widespread political and economic disarray, politicians and pundits have blasted the Clinton administration for mishandling a crucial strategic relationship and "losing" Russia.

In the recent explosion of articles about "Who Lost Russia," analysts have focused almost exclusively on the trials and tribulations of Russia's economic reform and Western attempts to assist these reforms. Russia's financial collapse in August 1998 and recent accusations of money laundering through the Bank of New York are cited as evidence that Russia is lost. The logic of this analysis is flawed. It assumes that these setbacks to economic reform or the rule of law represent end points in Russian history. In fact, they may really just reflect the transitional consequences of Russia's ongoing revolution. Russia is midstream in one of the most far-reaching attempts in history to simultaneously transform an empire, a polity, and an economy. It is naive to expect this revolution to go smoothly all the way.

Five years have passed since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and a new political and economic system has evolved in Russia. Russia After Communism provides an overall assessment of what has been accomplished and what has failed to date, and where Russia is heading. In a unique collaborative effort, the book features chapters on major issues written by pairs of leading Russian and American scholars.

Michael McFaul and Nikolai Petrov analyze the Russian elections since 1989 and assess voting behavior. Scott Bruckner and Lilia Shevtsova address the question of whether Russia has become a stable pluralist society. Martha Brill Olcott and Valery Tishkov focus on the nature of the Russian nation as well as regional relations. Russia has become a market economy, but what kind of capitalism is being formed? Anders Aslund and Mikhail Dmitriev examine the continuing challenge of economic reform. Sherman Garnett and Dmitri Trenin analyze Russia's relations with its nearest neighbor. Stephen Sestanovich examines Russia's place in the world.

Beginning in 1993, left or communist successor parties have achieved electoral success in several postcommunist countries as critics of neo-liberal reform. They have focused their electoral appeals on the social costs of reform, promising greater public welfare and moderation of economic policies. The present volume examines the impact of these parties on social policy in Poland, Hungary, Russia, Eastern Germany, and the Czech Republic, asking: Do left parties commit greater resources to social policy, or are they constrained by finances, international pressures, or their own conversion to market ideology? Do they seek to promote a social-democratic model of the welfare state, or look to models that assign the state a more limited role? Are they acting opportunistically in appealing to popular grievances or effectively building a consensus around a policy agenda? Answers to these questions are used to address a broader theoretical concern: What does being "left" mean in the postcommunist context?

Yegor Gaidar, the first post-Soviet prime minister of Russia and one of the principal architects of its historic transformation to a market economy, here presents his lively account of governing in the tumultuous early 1990s. Though still in his forties, Gaidar has already played a pivotal role in contemporary Russian political history, championing the cause of dramatic economic reform, aggressive privatization of state enterprises, and painful fiscal discipline in the face of widespread popular resistance.

The most surprising outcome of Russia's recent financial meltdown has been the demonstration of democracy's resilience, not its weakness. Most major political actors are preparing for the upcoming elections, not planning to seize power on their own.

In December 1993, a new political order began in Russia. Often called the Second Russian Republic, this political order is ruled by two central, if somewhat contradictory, principles. First, the Russian political system was to be dominated by one central decision-maker, the president. Having defeated his enemies in a violent confrontation in October 1993, Boris Yeltsin and his assistants drafted a constitution that served his immediate interests. The new basic law accorded the president's office inordinate political power and subordinated the other branches of the national government to lesser roles. In addition, the 1993 constitution specified that direct elections would be the only legitimate mechanism for assuming national political office. Even the president would be subjected to the uncertainties of the electoral process. In vesting the office of the presidency with greater powers, the new constitution also made the office directly accountable to the people.

What are Russian foreign policy objectives? It depends on whom you ask.

In making assessments of Russia's behavior in the world, it is absolutely

critical that we recognize that Russia today is not a totalitarian state ruled by a

Communist Party with a single and clearly articulated foreign policy of expanding

world socialism and destroying world capitalism and democracy. That state

disappeared in 1991. Rather, Russia is a democratizing state - a weakly institutionalized

democracy with several deficiencies, but a democratizing state

nonetheless. Russia's foreign policy, in turn, is a product of domestic politics in

a pluralistic system.

On 17 August 1998, the Russian government took emergency measures to avert an economic meltdown, but these did little to halt the crisis. A week later, the ruble had lost two-thirds of its value vis-'a-vis the dollar. In one day, the two major economic achievements of the Boris Yeltsin era--control of inflation and a stable, transferable currency--were wiped out. The stock market all but disappeared, the ruble continued to fall, banks closed, prices soared, and stores emptied as people started to stockpile durable goods like cigarettes, sugar, and flour. Responding desperately to a desperate situation, Yeltsin fired Prime Minister Sergei Kirienko and his government and eventually nominated Yevgeny Primakov to head a coalition government of centrists, communists, liberals, and even one member from Vladimir Zhirinovsky's Liberal Democratic Party. Several months after taking power, however, this new government had done little to devise a strategy for halting Russia's economic woes.

Michael McFaul explains why Russia's change from communist rule has been so protracted and conflictual in comparison with other democratic transitions. He focuses on the strategic interaction of individual actors, rather than cultural or historical factors, to build an explanation for Russia's troubled transition.