Wrong. No part of the FSU escaped "reform" - and the part that escaped with the least reform also had the least corruption (Belarus). The reform *is* corruption - the theft of public property & the use of governmental position to enrich oneself, ones family and friends. Ask your buddy Shlaifer - he knows all about it. (As USAID said, he ''abused the trust of the United States government by using personal relationships ... for private gain.'') ---------
Me:
Bingo. The whole thing was a scam from top to bottom. Leftists like to blame capitalist reforms for the corruption, and neoliberals like to praise them for all the great work they've done (!), but the fact of the matter is that all the serious reformists like Yavlinsky were marginalized. Chubais is not a reformer. He is a crook.
The constant attacks on Belarus by e.g. the NYT are freakish. Lukashenko is the one leader in the non-Russia CIS that has a popular mandate. He is not "the last Stalinist dictator in Europe," as the NYT calls him. He is a populist demogogue. There has been no mass looting in Belarus, no economic collapse, the economy did not get mafiaized, and there was no expulsion of human rights workers. As a matter of fact, Belarus has the highest living standards of any non-Russia CIS country, with the exception of Kazakstan.
Chris Doss The Russia Journal