(10 of 10)
Kafka to Pasternak. A dynamic, contemporary society above all demands a degree of decentralization. Indeed, Russia no longer has the idle hands and lands to afford the manic wastage, inspired inefficiency and brontosauric unresponsiveness of an economy nannied from Moscow. Its real gains in the future will have to come through increased individual efficiency, even if efficiency in turn demands a degree of freedom that Russians have not yet attained.
Clearly, though, Russia is no longer the passive pastoral society that quivered before Stalin. The Kremlin will increasingly feel the pressures of an urban culture that is no longer resigned to an indefinitely receding Utopia. Communism's Kafka-and-abacus stage is already being overtaken by its Pasternak-and-hi-fi era. Affluent Communists might not be any easier to live with. But they would certainly have more to live for.
* 22.5 per 1,000, v. France's 17.7 per 1,000.