With respect to the stratification structure, the process of limited liberalization and departures from central planning “opened up alternatives to the rewards and career paths formerly controlled by the party organization, or they shift the balance of dependence more in favor of subordinates by increasing the dependence of superiors upon them for the supply of labor and income” (Walder 1994). The wage differentials between the highest-skilled and lowest-skilled positions declined, while differentiated access to stateprovided benefits between the state apparatus (including the managers of the state enterprises) and the workers acquired greater importance. The deterioration of the state control over production and economic effectiveness of the state enterprises eventually contributed to a change of the political and economic system, the dissolution of the Soviet Union by its member states and the beginning of free market reforms in Russia in 1991.