In a Soviet country, this was not so bad a thing.

In the former Soviet bloc countries, the situation is different.

Russia charges that it uses different standards for former Soviet countries and others.

The flat tax has proved especially popular in former Soviet bloc countries.

"On the other hand, no one ever escaped a Soviet bloc country in front of a crowd."

At the same time, demands for economic aid from former Soviet bloc countries are increasing.

One has only to think about the Soviet bloc countries in these terms to see how stagnant they are by comparison.

The democratic framework that former Soviet countries are trying to establish must be accompanied by a change of political beliefs among the population.

"My homeland was much more liberated than the Soviet bloc countries," she wrote to me recently.

Unlike 1984, the Soviet bloc countries are in it.