Kyril Tidmarsh

Seventy years of Russian communism have left a demoralized work force. Generations of communist labor policies have instilled the nation with a "Gulag complex" and a stable of untranslatable terms for shirking work. Private initiative was sometimes dangerous and always unrewarded. Wage inversion led to the highest pay for the lowliest labor. And job dissatisfaction created moonlighting and enormous labor fluidity as Russians moved aimlessly from job to job. After all this, have the Russians forgotten how to work? The answer will prove crucial to Russia's pursuit of democratic capitalism.