ABSTRACT
The failure of the Gorbachev reforms to 're-invent the Soviet Union within a world that was becoming more engaged in market ideology led to the ultimate crisis of hegemony. The collapse of the USSR not only led to the more obvious problems of political instability, but also resulted in fragile geo-political relations. This chapter argues that during the period 1991-1999, Boris Yeltsin attempted to embark upon a process of capitalist transition that relied upon the expertise of International 'organic' neoliberal intellectuals on the one hand and allowed for the continuation of the nomenklatura system on the other. This uneasy relationship created a wide variety of discontent within Russia, in which opposition and counter-hegemonic contestation thrived. The chapter demonstrates that the Yeltsin administration did manage to construct a form of 'minimum hegemony' that has been built upon far more noticeable and successfully by his successor, Vladimir Putin.
