ABSTRACT
One issue ripe for examination is the quality and impact of the environmental assistance that started flowing to the countries of the former Soviet bloc after 1989. Many western observers and some central European experts apparently envisioned a tabula rasa that would support leapfrogging over the mistakes committed in the name of environmental protection in the west. (Their aspirations were much like those who apparently thought that markets in all their aspects would magically appear once communism was removed.) This hope was expressed, in part, through a push for the development of new ways to control pollution.
