Even before the demise of the Soviet Union, its communist rulers had acknowledged the failure of centralized planning and adopted the goal of moving toward a market economy. This about-face on the part of the Soviet leadership made possible the approval of some striking documents on economic matters by the Conference on Security and Cooperation in 4 Journal of Democracy Europe (CSCE), whose membership embraced the Soviet Union and its former East European satellites as well as the countries of Western Europe, the United States, and Canada.