Children of the Revolution.(social results of economic change in Eastern Europe)

Maciej Mataczynski and a free-market Poland were made for each other. Fluent in English and German, trained at Harvard and The Hague and now teaching international law at the University of Poznan, the 27-year-old Pole is a model of Western-style ambition. Before 1989 and the revolutions that swept across Eastern Europe, other kids at his socialist primary school harbored hopes of jobs as firemen; he dreamed of becoming prime minister. He remembers, a decade ago, telling a friend that he was about to graduate from high school. "Wow," the friend exclaimed. "For him that was an unattainable dream. For me it was as normal as breathing," says Mataczynski.

Fourteen years into the transition from socialism to capitalism, there's a growing social chasm in Central and Eastern Europe. The brave new world that opened up in 1989 brought many lucrative careers, travel and the chance to shape their lives. But for those without connections, languages or savvy about how to work the new system, freedom has brought fresh insecurities and inequalities. As the state has shrunk in favor of the private sector, so, too, have guaranteed jobs, apartments and support networks.

Youth have been both the major winners and among the major losers in all the changes. For the children of the revolution--young people now in their late teens and 20s, whose own transitions from childhood to adulthood coincided with economic transition--the division between haves and have-nots is often stark. Nimbler than their elders, easier to train in the ways of a tech-driven international marketplace, many young Central and Eastern Europeans forged high-flying careers during the 1990s. But many rural, poor or minority youth couldn't compete--in part because the notion of competition was itself new. Those left behind frequently turn to drink and drugs, say youth workers, to curb their despair.

A 1999 poll tested 14-year-olds in 28 countries on world knowledge and social skills. Poles scored the highest of any nation. They also had the biggest gap between the highest and lowest scores. "I treat the whole world as my country," says Wojtek Rabiej, chief financial officer of Link4 Insurance in Warsaw. "But there is a divide within my generation--those who feel that they can achieve something, and others who have given up very early." Today, in the transition countries, the average rate of youth unemployment is 30 percent--roughly twice that of the rest of the population. In the short term, freedom has brought uncertainty, unemployment and rising drug usage as well as Gap jeans and international jobs.

For those able to navigate the choppy waters of a post-Soviet economy, the world is rich in opportunity. The first step to making it: moving to a city, for it is there, rather than in the provinces, that good schools, jobs ...