THE SOVIET FUTURE "Homeland of patience" was the 19th- century Russian poet Fedor Tiut- chev's sorrowful epithet for his country. As Berkeley historian Nicholas V. Riasanovsky explains in A History of Russia (Oxford, 1963; 3rd ed., 1977), the Russians have pa- tiently endured invasion, isolation, and a backward economy. Looking West, Russia's rulers have repeat- edly sought to catch up with Europe, "whether by means of Peter the Great's reforms or the [Soviet] Five- Year Plans."...