I also got a few reviews from people who said, "ok, so they're corrupt, but it's not a ." So... what do I mean by saying that... a political system i… - Karen Dawisha

Sal'ye summed up the operation and Putin’s ambition... "...Cook up a legally defective contract ...take a license to the Customs Office... open the border... send the goods abroad... and put the money in your pocket. ...It was ...not put out to tender. They needed their 'partners'... of the shadow economy, criminal and mafia structures, front companies that could ensure this... . ...[H]is ...lamentations about the disappearing firms deserve nothing but contempt."

Seeing the collapse of communist rule in Eastern Europe after 1989, and the loss of the ruling status of communist parties... the [CPSU] authorized the ... to move money out of the Soviet Union, realizing that if the CPSU lost its ruling status... [i.e.,] access to the state budget without limit, they would need money to live in a . Something that the Polish, East German and Hungarian parties hadn't thought about.

Money started to flood... in such amounts that they virtually bankrupt the Gorbachev regime first, and then when Yeltsin failed to find the Communist gold, they also significantly handicapped the ability of the Yeltsin regime to succeed.