Russian Politics: The Calm Before the Storm?

Michael McFaul is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, currently in residence at Carnegie’s Moscow office. He is the author of Post-Communist Politics: Democratic Prospects in Russia and Eastern Europe (Washington: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1993); with Sergei Markov, The Troubled Birth of Russian Democracy: Parties, Personalities and Programs (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1993); and editorwith Tova Perlmutter of Privatization, Conversion and Enterprise Reform in Russia (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1994). The author would like to thank James Chavinfor his comments on this essay.