Back around 1989 and the fall of the Berlin Wall the cartoonist Tolles, then from Buffalo, NY, produced a two panel cartoon.  The first panel showed an areal view to the Pentagon with the caption: "Planners at the Pentagon are working hard on how to bring the Soviet Union down."  The next panel showed a quadragon version of the pentagon with the caption: "Planners at the newly downsized quadragon are working hard on how to bring the Soviet Union back!"  That captured it better than any pundit I read.  There was panic in the M-I Complex when Democrats started asking: "Where is the peace dividend?"

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

Not just capitalist but neoliberal too.

...Medvedev holds the same neoliberal and meritocratic values as his G8 peers; he is no more of a socialist or even a social democrat. In a telling passage in his inaugural speech, he said he wanted more Russians "to swell the ranks of the middle class and gain access to good education and healthcare". There was no suggestion that single mothers, the elderly, the poor and unskilled workers might also deserve decent services. No word either about stopping the decline of state schools and hospitals and their accelerating marketisation, as parents and patients have to pay for what used to be free while private institutions emerge to cream off the best staff. Everything is subordinated to the rightwing yuppie view that only the middle classes matter, since they (ie people like me) are the motor for growth and democracy.

Jonathan Steele, At last, a true moderniser in Moscow. Why punish him?, Guardian, Monday July 14 2008