Silent suffering in Russia: as Russian companies were privatized, usually given to "former communists" who stripped them of valuables, the bulk of Russians received merely empty promises.

"People in Russia were conditioned to worry about family problems and the global situation, particularly the struggle for peace, but not about crime, accidents, or the struggle to make a living," reported David Satter, a correspondent who covered Russia, in his book Darkness at Dawn. "When these problems began to intrude on them, the reaction was often fear and hysteria. Many people wanted to commit suicide because they were overcome with fear."

According to Satter, Russians as a people do not handle change very well; they have been trained all their lives to serve the Soviet State, to be used as raw material in the building of the state. Service to the state was ...