1992 Reports

The New Russian Constitution and the Future of the Russian Federation

Walker, Edward W.

When the USSR fell into a coma in August last year and was removed from its life-support system in December, the West seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. At last the Cold War, pronounced dead on countless previous occasions, was indeed finally over. Even if economic conditions had yet to bottom out, it appeared that a political watershed had been reached and the Great Soviet Drama was over. The implosion of the Soviet state would be followed by a process of state building and regime consolidation that would, it was hoped, bring the fifteen countries emerging from the rubble of the Soviet Union into the “Common European Home.”