Economic failure, including the unprecedented collapse of a major economy in peacetime, played a significant part in the collapse of the communist system in Russia, and the break-up of the Soviet Union itself. Despite its status as a major world power, the Soviet Union had a trade structure which resembled that of a relatively backward Third World country dependent upon exports of fuels, raw materials, precious metals, wood and lumber for 95 per cent of its exports to the industrial West. Its major industrial exports consisted of armaments, frequently delivered on credit to Third World...