> One of the major forces behind the breakup of the
> Communist Party was the apparatchiks' hope that they could claim great
> chunks of the public property for their own. They were correct, although
> some of the robber barons were not close to the center of power. The
> result was a horrendous economic collapse, from which the country only
> recently recovered largely because of an oil boom, which has since
> languished.
I'd push the Russian comparison even further. Russia recovered because after 1999, the siloviki smashed the rule of the oligarchs and renationalized about a third of the economy. The revenues of the energy boom were saved for a rainy day, and now they're being used to jumpstart the high-tech economy (Bearzilla has nanotechnology for teeth, not missiles -- military spending remains quite low).
-- DRR