Suchergebnisse

Politics, work, and daily life in the USSR is designed to illustrate how the Soviet social system really works and how the Soviet people cope with it. This study is based on the first comprehensive survey of life in the USSR since the Harvard Project over thiry-three years ago. The essays contained analyze the variations in attitude and behaviour reflected in the findings of the Soviet Interview Project, a five-year investigation of contemporary daily life in the USSR. The survey involved interviewing thousands of recent emigrants from the USSR to the United States as a means of learning about their former day-to-day lives. Some aspects of this survey dealt with areas the Soviets themselves had never investigated, so the data were not, and indeed still are not, available even in unpublished Soviet sources. This study of a large volume of firsthand observations is extremely valuable to anyone interested in the inner workings and behavioural dynamics of the contemporary Soviet social system

Putin appears to have more in common with Brezhnev than with his more decisive predecessors. Khrushchev, Gorbachev, and Yeltsin risked their positions in attempts to de-Stalinize the Soviet Union. … Putin's rule seems to be more pause than reform, which is, incidentally, what the public wants.

Putin has moved slowly and ambiguously on the economy, and it is unlikely that the pace will quicken. … Russia appears to be stuck halfway between a command economy and a market economy, incapable of moving forward except by small, halting, and irresolute steps.

Analyzes IMF management and strategy, departure of managing director Michel Camdessus, prospects under Horst Köhler, recommendations of the International Financial Institution Advisory Commission of the US Congress, critique of Extended Structural Adjustment Facility (ESAF) and shock therapy, and recommendations.