Here is the whole sweep of the Soviet experiment and experience, as told by its last steward. Drawing on his own experience as well as rich archival material, Gorbachev ponders Russia’s past, present, and future place in the world — including the October Revolution, the Cold War, and key figures such as Lenin, Stalin, and Yeltsin.
The Soviet Union created a unique form of urban modernity, developing institutions of social provisioning for hundreds of millions of people in small and medium-sized industrial cities spread across a vast territory. After the collapse of socialism these institutions were profoundly shaken–casualties, in the eyes of many observers, of market-oriented reforms associated with neoliberalism and the Washington Consensus. In Post-Soviet Social, Stephen Collier examines reform in Russia beyond the Washington Consensus. He turns attention from the noisy battles over stabilization and privatization during the 1990s to subsequent reforms that grapple with the mundane details of pipes, wires, bureaucratic routines, and budgetary formulas that made up the Soviet social state.
