ABSTRACT
The economic crisis played a vital role in the political drama enacted towards the end of Perestroika and the socio-political instability that became a vexed problem for the post Soviet nation-states. The changing, economic-class orientation, newly emerging stratification of the society, emergence of new sections of the society as a result of the reforms during Perestroika providing a social base to numerous political formations was evident from the data. According to the data of Russian Federation Goskomstat, unemployment was upto one per cent of the population of workable age in January 1993. Rigours of unemployment had been accompanied with a massive decline in the standard of living with hyperinflation resulting in wiping out the savings of the workers and other sections of society. One of the consequences of economic reforms in Russia was the rapid stratification of the population based on income levels which continued well into 1993.
