Economic security

Caught Between Reform and Revanche: Russia’s Struggle to Modernize

Ahead of the 2018 Russian presidential election, it’s worth recalling that Russian history from the nineteenth century onward has been punctuated by periods of abortive reforms, which ultimately have led to counterreform and stagnation. De-Stalinization under Nikita Khrushchev was a deeply transformative experience that created a foundation for political and economic reform. Yet the subsequent reforms led by Alexei Kosygin, which pushed the directors of state enterprises to adopt certain nearly free-market practices, were doomed from the start due to the absence of a functioning market economy.