Reform in Soviet Politics: The Lessons of Recent Policies on Land and Water

This book examines the record of the Brezhnev regime in its only major domestic innovation: the attempt to modernise Soviet agriculture. Under Brezhnev, the Soviets have invested more than half a trillion dollars in the countryside, but the Kremlin has remarkably little to show for the effort. The reason for the poor return, Gustafson argues is that it is fundamentally flawed because it has been conducted along traditional Soviet lines. For all its innovative features the agricultural progr...