The months after the one-week government and exile of Hasan al-Amri in the summer of 1971 did not appear so different from those that preceded these dramatic events. There occurred neither the bankruptcy of the Yemeni state directly predicted by Prime Minister Numan nor the military coup anticipated by others. Instead, the financial crisis eased and the civilian politicians gave signs of providing the stability demanded by the officers' corps. In retrospect, however, the period from late 1971 to 1975 constitutes a separate phase in the short history of the YAR. The new phase was one of transition and had a confusing, ambiguous, almost incoherent quality, the result of cross-cutting inchoate forces. The dynamic underlying the transition was a growing and only gradually apparent contradiction between the sociopolitical composition of the al-lryani regime and the possibilities for-and the requirements of-a major breakthrough in state building and modernization. Unresolved old problems and new events were by 1974 to place Yemeni politics and state building on a new course, the trajectory of which was not to become apparent until after 1975.