Post-Communist

"[I]t is misleading to read today's Russian situation as one in which a proper balance must be struck ebtween the two extremes: the Communist legacy of social solidarity, an the cruel game of open-market competition: the key feature of the Russian post-Communist situation is a direct pact (coincidence, even) between the darkest remainders of the past (secret KGB funds) and the most ruthless of the new capitalists - the emblematic figure of today's Russia is an ex-KGB apparatchik turned private banker with shady underground connections....