For the better part of a decade now the Russian people have been attempting to make a clear break from their past system of economic and political organization and make the decisive step toward a more open and prosperous society. The path has not been easy. In fact, the picture rendered by official economic statistics reveals an economic system which has continually contracted since 1989, so that, at the end of 1996, the economy was basically half the size it was in 1989a steeper fall than the United States experienced during the Great Depression of the 1930s. There are good reasons to doubt the official statistics, namely that the 1989 figure overstated economic growth, and that the 1996 data understate economic growth by failing to account for the expansion of the black market. Nevertheless, there can be little doubt that the Russian people have had to endure great economic hardship all through the 1990s, with an estimated 22% of the population living below the official poverty line in 1998.