Introduction

Until the second half of the 1990s, Western commentary about the former Soviet Union and the new Russia basically divided into two camps. On the one side stood those who not only welcomed the end of the USSR but looked forward to the ‘brave new world’ they hoped would be built on the debris left behind by the old order. Having failed to anticipate the demise of Soviet communism, the optimists now predicted a bright new capitalist future for Russia. With excellent access to those in power, they were clearly the most favoured group with Western governments in general and the American government in particular. Certainly, within the US foreign policy elite it was broadly assumed that successful reform in Russia and Russia's integration into the larger capitalist system, was both feasible and necessary. As Strobe Talbott, the architect of American strategy towards Russia, observed in the early days of the Clinton administration, reform in Russia was not just about Russia but the shape of the new international order waiting to be born in the wake of the Cold War. Others were always more sceptical. Post-communist Russia, according to the pessimists, was likely to prove less susceptible to reform than the optimists claimed. The legacy of Russian history, the success of Soviet political culture in shaping the outlook of ordinary Russians, and the failure of the upheavals of 1991 to upset the basic structure of Soviet society, together meant that Russia would prove a particularly tough nut for the reformists to crack.