The immediate afterglow of the failed coup attempt in August 1991 must rank as one of the more optimistic periods in Russian history. In August 1991, Russian President Boris Yeltsin was the most popular figure in Russia. Yeltsin's priority was not the creation or consolidation of a new democratic political system. Rather, Yeltsin turned his attention to dismantling the command economy and creating a market economy. Yeltsin's greatest achievement as president was the peaceful dissolution of the Soviet Union. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation and their allies, the Agrarian Party of Russia, won less than 20 per cent of the vote, while new 'centrist' groups combined for nearly a quarter of the vote. In early August, a multi-ethnic force headed by Chechen commander Shamil Basaev invaded the Russian republic of Dagestan, claiming Dagestan's liberation from Russian imperialism as their cause. Russian armed forces responded by launching a major counter-offensive against the Chechen-led 'liberation' movement.

The Russian economy in the period 1613-89 was quite sophisticated. All commerce in Russia was based on cash or barter. Russia had no banks until the middle of the eighteenth century, and the merchants were not Rothschild-types who could proffer loans to the government or to each other. The Muscovite economy did not provide well for most Russians. Lesser yields led to famine and starvation, which occurred roughly once in every seven years in Russia. Monasteries also suffered from the dislocations caused by the Time of Troubles. The Odoevskii legislative commission was one of the most efficient in Russian history. The commission extracted the most relevant provisions from the statute books and grouped them into what became the twenty-five chapters of the Law Code of 1649 (Sobornoe Ulozhenie), the important written monument in all of Russian history before the nineteenth century, with perhaps the exception of the chronicles. The evidentiary bases for the status of slavery and serfdom differed dramatically.

The beginning of the eighteenth century was a period of radical change in Russia's economy. These transformations are connected with the name Peter I, but they proved possible thanks to the development of trade and the accumulation of capital by the Muscovite government in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The second half of the eighteenth century represented a new stage in the development of trade and banking in Russia. The commercial-industrial and financial policy of Catherine II furthered the 'Europeanisation' of the Russian economy. The credit system created under her reign became known as the 'Catherine credit system', and lasted until the middle of the nineteenth century. Reforms in the area of local government helped industrial development in the provinces. The accumulation of capital, as well as the improvement of banking and monetary circulation, created conditions for private credit and the expansion of industrial production.