A comparison of Russia today with an advanced industrial economy like Japan would clearly be absurd. Only by looking at the economic situation inherited by the Russian reformers following the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991 does the full extent of what has been achieved become clear.

The Western view that Russian reforms themselves are the cause of severe economic instability assumes that programmes aimed at macro stabilization by tight monetary and fiscal policies have failed to revive growth. In this book, however, the opposite thesis is defended: that Russia's difficulties in controlling its inflation rate were the result of economic reforms not going far enough. Russia has had to deal with a highly negative inheritance, but the Soviet legacy is gradually being superseded.

The author concludes that the reform process has led to the emergence of a genuine market economy, albeit with distinctive distortions and flaws.