What Went Wrong with Perestroika?

Library Journal

Recent Soviet events, including the failed August 1991 coup, are given a convincing ipso facto explanation by a noted Harvard economist, who finds the key to Gorbachev's failures in a lethal mix of ideological conservatism, isolation from real conditions, and an attempt to please everyone by including political enemies in his governing coalitions. Whether anyone could have done better is doubtful, Goldman writes, since peaceful change has never come easily to Russian society. Such fatalism aside, the author clearly shows how Gorbachev's economic ``reforms'' succeeded in creating mass confusion and encouraging ``protectionism'' all the way down to the municipal level: so alienating society as to give ``reform'' itself a bad name. A readable and timely introduction for general readers.--Robert Decker, Los Angeles