Soviet ideologies in the period of glasnost : responses to Brezhnev's stagnation

Rezension: Shlapentokh, former senior fellow at Moscow's Institute of Sociology, has written an important study of responses to the general domestic crisis of the USSR. The first half of the book is devoted to examination of the background of the current crisis; the second half covers major ideological tendencies, 'conservative,' 'neo-Stalinist,' and 'liberal.' Shlapentokh shows how Gorbachev has gradually absorbed much, but by no means all, of the 'liberal' ideology but concludes that future prospects for liberalizing tendencies are highly uncertain. Shlapentokh's insights make this first comprehensive treatment of Soviet ideology in the Gorbachev era one of the more significant studies of the USSR in recent years. Choice The mid-1970s found almost all spheres of Soviet society in economic, social, and moral decline, a decline that generated conflicting ideologies offering solutions. Soviet Ideologies in the Period of Glasnost provides a penetrating examination of these unofficial ideologies, both historically and analytically, based upon studies of Soviet media, literature, films, underground literature, and Western scholarly works. It is a thorough and well-documented discussion of unofficial thinking trends in the Soviet Union during the post-Brezhnev era.