Boris Kagarlitsky is a senior research fellow at the Institute for Comparative Political Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He served as advisor to the chair of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia between 1993 and 1995, and was deputy to the Moscow City Soviet between 1990 and 1993.

Mr. Kagarlitsky, who holds a Ph.D. in political science, has made regular contributions to Russian newspapers and journals as Nezavisimaya Gazeta, The Moscow Times, Vek and Svobodnaya Mysl. He taught at Moscow State University in 1992 and speaks English, French, Italian, Spanish and German in addition to Russian.

He is the author of six books in English: The Restoration in Russia (1995); The Square Wheels (1995); The Mirage of Modernization (1995); The Disintegration of the Monolith (1993); The Dialectic of Change (1989); and The Thinking Reed (1988).