Gorbachev's Struggle for Reform

Library Journal

Aslund, first secretary for economic affairs at the Swedish embassy in Moscow from 1984 to 1987, examines the Soviet economy and Gorbachev's intense efforts to reform it. This book bears witness to the author's expertise and impressive scholarly talents, but Aslund's meticulous, technical, and often dry account will appeal most to fellow economists and academics interested in the subject. Marshall Goldman's Gorbachev's Challenge: Economic Reform in the Age of High Technology ( LJ 6/15/87) remains much more readable, if one year less up to date. Both authors stress the enormous difficulties that confront Gorbachev, the lack of progress so far, and the unlikelihood of any real improvement in the foreseeable future.-- R.H. Johnston, McMaster Univ., Hamilton, Ontario

Booknews

An investigation of the process of economic reform in the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1988. The primary concern is to describe the shape that reform has assumed and to evaluate reform strategy. The approach is to proceed from non-systemic changes to reforms going outside the present system of allocation and ownership. Familiarity with Soviet politics and economics is assumed. Acidic paper. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)