ABSTRACT
After six years of fitful and half reforms, Russia's transition to a market economy was finally derailed by the fiscal collapse of the state. While postcommunist Russia has withstood a succession of crises in this period, the fiscal collapse of the state presents the most serious challenge to the major economic and political reforms enacted under the El'tsin presidency. Since the spring of 1998, the financial and banking sectors of the economy have collapsed, domestic and foreign debt obligations have been reneged upon and unilaterally restructured, unpaid workers have engaged in increasingly militant and disruptive displays of protest politics, and the threat of hyperinflation looms over the economy. The physically weakened president, meanwhile, changed prime ministers three times in five months before a hostile and emboldened parliament imposed its own choice for prime minister on him. Why did Russia's economic transition lead to the fiscal collapse of the state? And, what does this case contribute to a more general understanding of post-communist transitions to the market?
