Tracing the origins of change in general education in the last years of the Soviet Union and afterwards in the Russian Federation, this text describes what happened during Perestroika and Glasnost, and the struggles for liberalization which were finally given official recognition in 1998. After the anti-Gorbachev coup in 1991, with the disintegration of Soviet and Communist power, decentralization and regionalization developed, together with the emergence of alternative schools and finally a small private sector. The many problems faced by schools and teachers, with the near collapse of the Russian economy, are also described.