Russia in the early XXI century: social and political transformation

Russia in the early XXI century: social and political transformation poses two key questions: main reasons for failing social transformation in post-communist Russia, and specifics of the new stage in this transformation after 1999. The author sees the reasons for slow, painful and unfinished nature of this transformation as follows. Post-communist transformation in Russia coincided with the other no less painful and socially difficult process of collapsing imperial state. This thesis is substantiated by arguments for the third Russian Revolution in 1989-99, for recent authoritarian trends in Russian polity. Dismantling of the remaining vestiges of imperial state and constructing in Russia a modem national democratic state are seen as a historical task for the regime of today's Russia.