The text transcribed below is an edited version of the second round table held in April 1991 at Centro de Estudios Públicos regarding the political and economic transformations currently taking place in the Soviet Union. At this time, Professor Vitaly Naishul, a researcher for the Soviet Union Academy of Sciences, discussed the disintegration of the state apparatus of that country and the paradoxes and uncertainties they entail for the future of Russia. His arguments were commented on by Arturo Fontaine Talavera, David Gallagher, Boris Lvin, Harald Beyer and Juan Andrés Fontaine, in that order.