Description
Book SynopsisA critical assessment of the implications of the "social contract" - a tacit agreement between the post-Stalin regime and the working class whereby the state provided economic and social security in return for the workers' political compliance.
Trade ReviewIn this clear, tightly focused work, Cook lays out critical sources of perestroika’s ultimate failure, in Gorbachev’s fear of revoking the ‘social contract’ that had, however imperfectly, bound the old regime and much of the Soviet population... [A] thorough treatment of radical reform policies and uncertain implementation in the USSR’s twilight. -- Walter D. Connor, Boston University
One of the great problems about perestroika has been the attitude of the Soviet masses to the ideas of reform. Another problem has been the woefully backward condition of the Soviet economy, which in its collapse under Gorbachev has made the term ‘reform’ almost ironic. Previous writers on perestroika have tackled both problems in terms of generalities and platitudes about the technological backwardness of non-market economies. With Linda Cook’s book, we get a very valuable correction of those views. -- Adam B. Ulam, Harvard University
