though, that the path taken by the Russian socialist system will be clearly in a new direction (Leitzel 1). Russia has a market economy and has included capitalist-style behavior for as much as 25 percent of all economic activity in the pre-reform USSR, some of which was even legal. The legal portion was dominated by collective farm markets (Leitzel 27). Prices at these markets were more or less unregulated. In addition, some 100,000 Soviet citizens engaged legally in small-scale crafts and trades. The rest of the Soviet market economy was technically illegal and so hidden and described as the "underground economy" (Leitzel 27). The transition has built on both the legal and the illegal market economy.
The real problem has come not from government policies "nor even the notorious machinations of the plutocrats that have deprived the Russian economy of its advantages" (Luttwak 19), but rather from chronic deficits in services and a reliance on imported food in the cities has continued along with a steady decline in the value of Russian exports: "A balance of external payments that had always been in surplus thus started to generate deficits" (Luttwak 19).
Little progress in terms of economic reforms had been accomplished by the end of the Gorbachev era, and the success or failure of any reform after that time would be linked to the level of popular support that could be garnered for that policy. There has been an increase in the number and frequency of public opinion surveys in Russia in recent years. In August 1992, respondents were asked if they thought the economic reforms should continue or be stopped, and 53 percent supported the reforms while only 20 percent wanted them stopped. Even those respondents unhappy with their own situation believed that further reforms would improve matters. The issue is more complex when specific reforms are examined rather than merely the idea of reform as such. A survey in June 199...