Book excerpt: During the last years of its life the Soviet Union turned to law like a dying monarch to his withered God. Its successor, the Russian Federation, has adopted the same posture. In public discourse the phrases civil society and law-governed state have acquired hortatory force, the judges are bidden by law to wear robes, and the Congress and the Supreme Soviet enact and amend statutes with the fervor of one who sees in legislation the path to paradise. (Bernard Rudden, Civil Society and Civil Law, The Revival of Private Law in Central and Eastern Europe.) Somewhat less dramatically, perhaps, the picture is repeated throughout the rest of the post-communist constituency.