THE RETURN

A crisp, unromantic overview of the rocky Russian journey to join the world markets.

From the first thaw in Communism in the late 1980s to the rebounded technocracy under the current president, Treisman (Political Science/UCLA; The Architecture of Government, 2007, etc.) walks us through the stages of turbulent recent history, keeping a keen eye to Russia as an emerging economy and avoiding the pitfalls of Russia’s “darkness” or “mysticism.” The author proceeds chronologically, dissecting each of the last four administrations and their failure or success in managing the economy and instilling democratic reforms. Treisman then dwells on the causes of the meltdown in 1991, the destabilizing ethnic splintering and the recent financial crisis and recovery. His analysis of the four leaders is particularly astute and enjoyable: Gorbachev, “the captain,” who first proposed the notion of a nuclear-free world, galvanized the people wildly with his “new thinking,” and even neutralized the military, but was ultimately thwarted by the crumbling faith in the Communist system and the ensuing economic crisis; Yeltsin, “the natural,” who unleashed democratic forces yet no real reform or dismantling of the pernicious security system and who started a disastrous war in Chechnya and chose a successor (Putin) who would “roll back” the freedoms he tried to instigate; the “accidental president,” Putin, a former KGB officer who whipped the economy into shape and imposed order with the misuse of centralized power and censorship; and the mild-mannered Medvedev, “the understudy,” who has stuck to Putin’s script and has yet to “rise to the occasion and grasp his moment in the limelight.” In the chapter titled “The Logic of Politics,” Treisman systematically sifts through the causes of Russia’s fairly nonviolent transformation, considering its autocratic history, and “The Mountains” offers a detailed look at the independent ethnic regions of the Caucasus and Russia’s devastating determination to quell their rebellious spirit.

A tight, modern and relevant study of the “Russia that has returned.” For a more personal look at the upheaval of the '90s, see Susan Richards's Lost and Found in Russia (2010).