| Abstract: | Embarking upon modernization, Russia will have to struggle with the debris of a degrading industrial society. The paper employs the concepts of ‘decay energy’ and ‘humanitarian catastrophe’, regarding these phenomena as inseparable from the transitional process. A detailed analysis of various types and forms of decay energy leads the author to the following conclusions: (1) minimization, elimination and/or conversion of disintegration forces and products of decay is an integral part of the modernization project for Russia; (2) this project ought to have an ideology, a leader, social forces supporting it, educational resources, and access to the media; (3) the environmental movement is one of the few collective actors poised to combat the decay forces, which possesses a well‐developed worldwide support network and has created a discourse that is comprehensible to the authorities as well as the business world and lay people; (4) for Russia with its numerous ‘frozen’ and ‘hot’ conflicts, this transition will be especially difficult and costly. |
