Introduction

To what extent has the Russian exit from communism been unique? After all, Russia is only one of more than two dozen states to have charted an independent path since the disintegration of communist power in Europe between 1989 and 1991. From the perspective of initial starting conditions, then, post-Soviet Russia had much in common with post-Soviet Ukraine, post-Soviet Estonia, and the other republics of the USSR as well as with a number of the formerly communist states of Eastern Europe. Given the apparent similarity of key starting points, a comparison of the post-communist states should shed useful light on whether Russia possesses any distinctive features that may have shaped its postcommunist path of development. Likewise, many social scientists have defined the exit from communism as part of a broader, global process toward democratization that began with the end of authoritarian rule in Spain, Portugal, and Greece in the mid-1970s, so that the Russian “transition” may also be compared to a series of states with noncommunist but authoritarian political legacies.