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Why do some countries become democracies, while others move from one nondemocratic regime to another? Post-communist transformations in the countries of the former Soviet Union could be viewed as a "natural experiment" in regime change: the politics of post- Soviet states demonstrate a great diversity. In this article, I present a partial theory of post-Soviet regime change and attempt to explain the outcomes of elite conflicts in post-Soviet states and their consequences for regime change. The account of political transformations in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus will outline certain common features and peculiarities of regime change in each case and provide several implications for comparative studies of regime change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]