We have argued, in a monograph published by the University of California, Berkeley, in 1995, that a major factor contributing to the collapse of the Soviet Union was the fundamental contradiction between the Soviet system and processes of innovation and diffusion of information technology. Since information technology, and its diverse uses, are key elements in economic productivity, managerial flexibility, and military power, efforts to correct retardation in this technological area induced perestroika policies that ultimately spun out of control. In this paper we examine the matter, namely the interaction between information technology, economy, and society, in the opening years of democratic Russia, that is, in the closing moments of the century.

We examine three major questions.

	First, the demise of microelectronics and computers industry in Russia, a development that places Russia under conditions of technological dependency: which are the economic, and strategic implications of this trend?
	Second, the link up of Russian business, particularly in finance and advanced services, to global business networks, via telecommunications and computer networks: which are the consequences of globalization of capital, and capital management, in Russia?
	Third, we explore the diffusion of information and communication technology in society at large, trying to assess the extent and specificity of the rise of the network society, the social structure of the information age, in Russia.