7

Confucius   was passing by  Mount   Tai when    he  saw a   distraught  woman

weeping by  a   grave.  Resting his hands   on  the wooden  bar at  the front

of  his carriage,   he  listened    to  her wailing.    Then,   he  sent    a   student to

speak   the following   words:  “A  great   misfortune  must    have    befallen

you,    that    you cry so  bitterly.”  She answered,   “Indeed it  is  so. My

husband and his father  have    both    been    killed  by  tigers, and now my

son,    too,    has fallen  prey    to  them.”  Confucius   asked,  “Why    do  you

remain   here?”  She     answered,   “No     callous     government  rules   here.”

Confucius   said,   “Remember   that,   my  students.   Callous government  is

more    ravenous    than    tigers.”

“The    Book    of  Rites”^1

BY THE MID-1980S, THE SOVIET UNION HAD BEGUN TO

UNRAVEL AS THE gross inefficiencies of central planning began
manifesting themselves in painfully obvious ways. However, the country
was far too unstable and encumbered by its own history to allow a
gradual transition toward a market economy, or the democracy such a
transition was supposed to bring about. Mikhail Gorbachev’s attempt to
open the Soviet Union resembled Pandora’s attempt to open her box:
there was simply no way to do it gradually. Once that lid was cracked, it
blew off altogether. In Russia’s case, the walls fell down, too. As the
Communist Bloc disintegrated, decades, generations—entire lifetimes—
of frustration, discontent, stifled rage, and raw ambition came boiling
out, never to be contained again. The vast majority of Russians were
completely unprepared for the ensuing free-for-all.
But Armenian Radio kept up with the times: