Abstract: The second chapter examines a country whose post-communist experience has been very different from that of the relatively advantaged Czechs, and examines the emergence of class divisions to political preferences in Russia during the early and middle part of the 1990s. By examining the relationship between class position, economic perceptions and orientations towards marketization over time, this study provides evidence of both the economic basis of class polarization and the role of an increasing understanding of the socially differentiated costs and benefits associated with market economies in accounting for class differences in political preferences.