Public Opinion in the System of Management

Negative assessments of the results of Russian reforms have recently become commonplace in the statements of Western economists. It is becoming just as fashionable to curse them as to be on a fat-free diet or to be fighting cholesterol. And on the contrary, to justify or at least explain the logic of development of the events in Russia and direct attention toward the country's achievements is becoming just as indecent and "socially hazardous" in the United States as offering a coat to a lady, or, even worse, paying a compliment. Unfortunately, all attempts at a considered analysis of Russian post-Communist history immediately run into a wall of perplexity (or indignation), which is then inevitably followed by rhetorical questions such as "Haven't the oligarchs plundered the whole country?" or "Yeltsin is an inveterate drinker, isn't he?" (This was the same in the Stalinist Soviet Union, when, in response to any story of a rise in the well-being of the Americans, the vigilant Soviet worker was supposed to utter something proudly along the lines of "But on the other hand, you lynch blacks there!")