An examination of property rights reforms in Russia before the revolution reveals the advantages and pitfalls of liberal democracy in action-from a government that could be described as neither liberal nor democratic. The author analyzes whether truly liberal reform can be effectively established from above versus from the bottom up-or whether it is simply a product of exceptional historical circumstances.

Judge Stephen F. Williams, a Harvard Law School graduate, worked in private practice and then served as an assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York in the 1960s. He taught at the University of Colorado School of Law until his appointment in 1986 to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.