Demonstrates how the emergence of private property and a market economy after the Soviet Union's collapse enabled a degree of freedom while simultaneously supporting authoritarianism.

Vladimir Shlapentokh was born, raised and educated in the Soviet Union. Before immigrating to the United States in 1979, he worked as a Senior Fellow in the Sociological Institute in Moscow, where he conducted the first nationwide public opinion surveys in the USSR. He is currently Professor of Sociology at Michigan State University and is the author of eighteen books.

1. Private property and big money in political regimes in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia: a theoretical overview; 2. Ideology and public opinion in a centralized society and in a fragmented society; 3. Corruption, the power of state and big business in the Soviet and post-Soviet regimes; 4. Enemies and the issue of legitimization in the Soviet and post-Soviet regimes; 5. Political police before and after; 6. Treatment of strikers in Soviet and post-Soviet times: Novocherkassk and Mezhdurechensk; 7. Foreign policy: the geopolitical factor before and money after; 8. A freedom which Putin dearly loves - the right to leave his country; Conclusion.