What’s Ahead in the Soviet Union

This may well be the most important book on contemporary Soviet politics to appear in a decade. Seweryn Bialer has undertaken a “synthetic overview” of continuity and change in Soviet politics during the Brezhnev era. The book is divided into five parts. Part One discusses the nature of “mature Stalinism” (1938-53) as the base point from which to measure the scope and character of change in the post-Stalin era. Part Two analyzes the nature of the current Soviet political and administrative elites: their age structure, career paths, turnover rates, policy orientations, and the coming massive generational change within them. Part Three addresses at great length the question of stability and instability of the Soviet...