Who runs the Soviet Union and how? What will change under Gorbachev? What is life like in the USSR today? What forces shaped modern Russia? How is the Soviet economy organized? What are its flaws? And what are Gorbachev's prospects for correcting them?

A group of outstanding Sovietologists met at Stanford University in 1985 to answer these questions. This book is the result.

"THE GORBACHEV ERA presents a sober, balanced realistic picture of the Soviet Union. The contributors are among the most able and best informed specialists on the USSR." --Walter Stossel, Jr. United States Ambassador to the USSR, 1974-76