DEJA VU, ALL OVER AGAIN? The chorus to the Soviet version of The Internationale envisions the Great October Socialist Revolution as the final and decisive battle.

Now comes The Troubles: the Sequel?

Russia's dependency on oil is pushing the country's economy into a tailspin. Oil peaked at $147 a barrel in July but has since plunged as low as $35 a barrel. As a result of the plummeting oil price and the global financial crisis, gross domestic product shrank by 8.8% in the 12 months to January, the rouble has lost one-third of its value since September and unemployment is expected to rise to 10 million by the end of the year. The Kremlin has spent more than $200bn of its reserves to cushion the devaluation of the rouble and avoid public panic.

Russia is a country that didn't have much of an entrepreneurial tradition before 1917, and has trouble incubating one, or resurrecting a New Economic Policy, now.

Stephen Dalziel, executive director of the Russo-British Chamber of Commerce (RBCC), believes that the financial crisis in Russia is much worse than in Britain.

"I think that the problem is that they were unprepared to the point of being arrogant," he said. "When sub-prime happened in 2007 they were arrogant because they thought it was a western thing. They said it wasn't like 1998 and then it suddenly hit them."

He believes that the situation for businesses is far worse than 1998.

The government is "too dependent on natural resources, which is foolish", he said. "They do nothing to encourage an increase in small and medium enterprises. Hopefully this time they will understand how SMEs develop the backbone of an economy. They have paid it lip service, but haven't done anything."

The Soviet model of economic development, which took Karl Marx's understanding of One Big Factory and Frederick Taylor's ideas of scientific management to the limit of setting up cities to serve such factories aggravates the problem. In a closed planned economy there is no question of such cities failing. In an open market economy the consequences of failure can be severe.

Outside Moscow and St Petersburg, there is a potentially more serious problem looming. Russia has many so-called monocities, where most of the town's population is employed by one industry such as car production or commodities output.

"The biggest problem for now is monocities," [Moscow political analyst Georgy] Bovt said. "One example is Tolyatti [named after an Italian communist] in the Volga, where about 60% of the population are involved in Lada production. The plant is in trouble so most of the population of the city will be unemployed."

With mass unemployment could come mass unrest. Several demonstrations have already taken place as hundreds of thousands of people have lost their jobs or had their salaries cut, but the authorities have been quick to shut them down.

"Authorities are absolutely terrified of social unrest, the idea of a spontaneous explosion of unrest," said Dalziel. "If there were to be a mass demonstration somewhere, there could be a domino effect. I really don't think anyone in authority knows what to do."

If the social unrest includes revolutionary songs, will the Russians have to rewrite this one as We Renounce the New World?