ABSTRACT
Economic interaction betvveen Russia and the international financial community is a comparatively new phenomenon, both as a concept and in practice. From the beginning it raised fundamental questions, which went beyond the issues normally seen as important when major creditor govemments, international organisations and Commer cial banks start to seek a mode of relations with a new member. From the Russian perspective the most crucial question is the following: how do the established conditions, or ‘rules of the game’, correspond to the country’s two strategic goals for the transition, those of moving from a Leninist Central planning system to a market economy and of simultaneously creating an open democratic society? Clearly, too, that question has global implications.
