It may be highly desirable for the Soviet Union's successor states to construct markets, democratic regimes, the rule of law, and civil societies as quickly as possible, but is the desirable possible?' For those former Soviet republics that were an integral and thoroughly communized part of the USSR since the 1920s, the answer is no.2 Rapid, fundamental, and comprehensive change, in a word, revolution, is impossible because the structural legacy of the USSR's collapse effectively precludes the successful pursuit of revolutionary change.3 Faute de mieux, protracted and sequential or simply evolutionary change however unspectacular and dull is the only alternative.4 My case rests on the proposition that the Soviet Union's collapse failed to generate two (of doubtless many) necessary conditions of revolutionary change. One such condition, absent in all the non-Russian successor states under consideration, was a revolutionary elite. Another, absent in all the states, including Russia, was the requisite capacity to pursue revolutionary policies. It follows logically that, in the absence of conditions that make attempted revolution possible, attempted revolution and thus revolution is impossible. I support my argument with a conceptually grounded analysis of the post-Soviet legacy in Ukraine and Russia. Although they are but two of twelve comparable successor states, Ukraine and Russia are especially vivid and, arguably, paradigmatic examples of the diametrically opposed paths that the USSR's successor states can follow. Post-Soviet Ukraine is a case of evolutionary change; post-Soviet Russia, of attempted revolutionary change. Until 1994 Ukraine appeared merely to stagnate, perhaps even to teeter on the edge of collapse, while Russia seemed destined to rush to democracy and the market.5 By 1995-1996 the tables appeared to have turned. Ukraine seemed stable and committed to reform, while Russia came across as fractious, polarized, and increasingly hostile to reform. This reversal of roles was not accidental, nor was it the consequence of elite choice, except perhaps in a trivial sense. Rather, the structural legacy of the USSR's collapse, in particular, the kinds of elites Ukraine and Russia inherited and the resource endowments of those elites, kept Ukraine on the path of evolutionary change and propelled Russia down the path of revolutionary change. Ukraine inherited an impoverished elite with an existential interest in evolutionary change. Russia inherited a revolutionary elite too weak to impose its will on an antirevolutionary