1991 Reports

Perestroika in the Soviet Rustbelt

Kotkin, Stephen

As the increasingly desperate Soviet leadership lurches towards a chimerical restoration of “order,” the profound economic and social ills that were to have been remedied by perestroika loom larger than ever. With the evident demise of the five-year effort to reform the Communist system, perhaps it makes sense to try to assess the current state of affairs in Soviet society.