The story of Gazprom’s creation goes a long way to explaining why the disintegration of the Soviet regime was relatively peaceful, but also why its transformation was so incomplete. The economic foundation of the Soviet system was destroyed not by an external enemy or by dissidents but by the proprietor’s instinct of members of the nomenklatura who gladly exchanged their petty privileges for something far bigger—a piece of the pie. It was the nomenklatura who undermined the core principle of socialism.
