Russian Fascism and the Making of a Dictator
by Vladimir Solovyov and Elena Klepikova

Reviewed by Michael Specter

THE Russian word bespredel is a slang term that basically means "anything goes." It is often used these days to describe the lawlessness raging in Russia, the sense that life is out of control and that while freedom is great, a little order wouldn't do any harm either. Bespredel is a word one needs to have at hand when contemplating the career of Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky, the theatrically extremist leader of the Liberal Democratic Party who has so powerfully influenced the course of Russian politics over the past few years. Read more »

TULA, Russia–Valery Yermokov's heart stopped beating as soon as he finished the quart of homemade vodka. A drug addict who could not possibly afford heroin, he had also injected a coarser opiate into his veins. Read more »

SAY WHAT YOU WILL about Vladimir Zhirinovsky, but the man knows how to throw a party. For his 48th birthday, "probably the last before I return this nation to its historic greatness, " as he put it that night, Russia's most compelling–and notorious– politician invited everybody from President Boris Yeltsin to a czarist honor guard in full battle dress to celebrate with him at Moscow's grandly decaying Budapest Restaurant. Read more »

MOSCOW, March 5– With a society so nervous about the future that it has all but stopped having children, and a death rate rising faster than that of any other country, Russia faces an unusual population crisis that even optimists say will take a generation to reverse. Read more »