Countries that have not broken so cleanly from communist ideology, however, are in decay - serving as an indictment of top-down state control. Russia, once the power nucleus of the USSR, has been slower than many of its former satellite countries to embrace capitalism and political reform. Its elections have been widely regarded as rigged. And the 2009 Freedom House Map of Freedom notes that property rights are precarious and the rule of law is too frequently subjugated to politics.