ABSTRACT
One of the major claims made in this book is that the transformation of societies from state socialism to capitalism has to be contextualized in an internationalist perspective. I have considered the role of external forces on the behavior of the political elites under Gorbachev and also in the post-socialist period under Eltsin. In this chapter, I turn to consider how a world system approach may be utilized to explain how classes influence the move from state socialism to capitalism.
