From the Tsarist period through the Soviet era to contemporary Russia, political and economic power have been tightly linked. Usually the goals of economic growth and prosperity have taken a back seat to highly centralized political power. During the first half of the course we will examine how this phenomenon developed in Tsarist and Soviet Russia and how the Soviet Union failed to resolve this dilemma and collapsed. The second half of the course will be devoted to the last twenty years of the development of post-Soviet Russia with emphasis on the contemporary challenges Russian leaders face as Russia becomes more prosperous and demands for better governance grow as modernization theory would predict.