Introduction

Abstract

This book addresses the need for a better understanding of the processes of transformation from a socialist economic system towards a market economy. If we consider the 1917 Revolution in Russia as the ignition point of one of the greatest social experiments of mankind, the transformation processes since 1989 are the major challenges at the turn of the twenty-first century. The reader will find that the world was not very well prepared for these challenges. There was no ‘master plan’ in the drawer, despite the fact that ‘system competition’ between communism and capitalism had lasted for decades. On the eve of the collapse of the socialist economic system much hope for a better world under the triumphant market economy was generated. With the benefit of hindsight these hopes look naïve after fifteen years of ongoing transformation.