Kapitalizm: Russias Struggle to Free Its Economy

Brady's vibrant account of the first six years of Russia's post-Communist economic reform explains how a once closed economy became so precariously dependent on the global markets. As Business Week's Moscow bureau chief from 1989 to 1993, Brady collected interviews from government officials Yegor Gaidar, Anatoly Chubais and Boris Nemtsov. She leaves chronology and statistics for the appendixes (which include charts listing wages, inflation, poverty level, household income) and allows anecdotes, photos and quotes to paint a picture of the socioeconomic metamorphosis of the country. Bankers and tycoons such as Oleg Boiko, Vladimir Gusinsky and Boris Berezovsky, the so-called oligarchs who have asserted their power since Yeltsin's reelection (for which they were arguably responsible), figure prominently, and Brady delicately probes the role of Western financial advisers and their reincarnation into overly bullish investors. Pensioners and the poor, too, speak out: one widowed pensioner laments, ""We were just beginning to live when it was Brezhnev's time."" The book ends in early 1997, when Russia's future still looked relatively rosy--before the August 1998 financial crisis catapulted the country back into economic chaos. But Brady addresses these recent changes in a postscript. For the most part, she believes that Russia has no choice but to stumble on toward economic liberalization. However, in speculating about Russia's future, Brady offers the cautious ""Pozhivyom uvidem. We will live and see."" (Feb.)