Between these best and worst scenarios for Russia, following the latest Yeltsin-induced dramas, lies a third less-than-uplifting prospect: that of a crony capitalism of the sort that Latin America has fought hard to shed these past 20 years, in which Russia's rough-hewn democracy comes and goes, while clusters of law-despising monied interests (perhaps heaven forbid, especially in Russia backed by men with beetle brows and gold epaulettes) call the shots behind the scenes.

ECONOMIST: The strange rage of Boris Yeltsin