The Disintegration of the Monolith

In this book Boris Kagarlitsky offers a trenchant analysis of the break-up of the Soviet Union and the transformation of a section of the old nomenklatura into a new possessing and ruling elite.Kagarlitsky shows that Western commentators have been misled by the street theatre of events like the bungled coup of August 1991 into supposing that a fundamental break has been made with the confused politics and economics of the late Soviet period. He analyses the ill-considered and self-interested attempts made by the nomenklatura to privatize assets and inaugurate a free-market economy, finding an essential continuity between the plans of Gorbachev’s and Yeltsin’s advisers. He reveals, too, how the new Russian President has displayed a greater capacity to assert dictatorial powers than did the last General Secretary, a tendency which has brought him into repeated conflict with elected bodies.Boris Kagarlitsky is himself a Socialist member of the Moscow Soviet and one of the founders of Russ