Inside the Apparat, Perspectives on the Soviet System From Former Functionaries

by Uri Ra'anan (Editor), Igor Lukes (Editor)

Based on in-depth oral-history interviews with defectors and emigres, Ra'anon and Lukes (both Boston U.) attempt to draw out the Cold War for a few more years. Their thesis, essentially is that the visible changes in the Soviet Union are misleading since the state continues to be controlled by a large bureaucratic apparat under the command of a small number of men working in the Kremlin. Sound familiar? Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

309 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1990

Reviews

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Apparently the topic of the Soviet bureaucracy was of rapidly declining interest by the time this book appeared in print, my copy was picked up from a remaindered stack. However, the internal workings of that bureaucracy remained and are still of interest because it is the measure by which all succeeding government regimes in Moscow are measure. Drawing on the oral histories of actual members of that bureaucracy, or apparat - thus their general Russian nickname of 'apparatchiks' - this book presents great street level, so to speak, insights in to how the Soviet Union worked or didn't - and the scales of success or failure still used in Russia today.