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Based on interviews with Soviet policymakers, and careful reading of the public record, political psychologist Kull traces the process by iwhich Soviet elites realized nd accepted the failure of Leninist thought. He also surveys new thinking, much of which is not known in the West. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

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CHOICE Review

At once its plus and its minus, this study was done in the midst of the Soviet communist empire's collapse. On the plus side, the author skillfully traces the unfolding of Gorbachevian ^D" in its onslaught upon long-standing Leninist doctrines. Drawing on official documents and some 82 insider interviews, Kull shows how a revolution in ideas destroyed the old regime's mind-set and paved the way for its collapse in August 1991. On the minus side, the author's view is skewed by the transforming events he sought to grasp in mid-cycle. His thesis that ^D" constituted a new ^D" is overdrawn if the term is taken in the sense of a self-enclosed system of precise dogmas capable of sustaining a ruling elite's power over society. ^D" was rather a powerful solvent of Leninist ideology but was unable to solidify itself into a firm doctrinal ground for a reformed Soviet regime. It left the scene with Gorbachev. Kull's main thesis, however, stands on firm ground: the Soviet system was not torn apart by economic failure alone, but by a crisis of ideas and identity within its ruling elite. That crisis sundered the bond between the system and its adherents that had kept it in existence. Advanced undergraduate through faculty. C. A. Linden George Washington University