ABSTRACT
Understanding the Russian transition is impossible without first looking at the performance of the Soviet Union in the years leading up to its collapse, for Russia was by far the largest, most populous, and most; productive among the Soviet Union's constituent Republics (sec also Chapter 1). Following his appointment as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in February 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev and his allies in the regime launched a program of "reconstruction" (perestroika). This called for gradual democratization of the political system, and for reforms of the economy to encourage individual initiative and responsibility. It was the disastrous failure of these reforms that set the scene for the beginning of the present transition.
