ABSTRACT
A redistribution of power between the center and the periphery is essential if the Russian Federation is to become a stable democracy and a reliable member of the world community, able to live at peace with itself and its neighbors. It is no longer possible (if indeed it ever was) to govern the world’s largest country from a single center. Regionalization—used here to describe the devolution of economic and political power from Moscow to the provinces—is already well advanced in Russia. As this chapter seeks to show, there was between 1991 and 1993 a major shift of power from the federal center to the country’s constituent units.
