ABSTRACT
Mikhail Gorbachev inherited a bloated bureaucracy and a demoralized work force. Personnel turnover was particularly high in the Politburo, the Council of Ministers and the Central Committee's Secretariat, the last of which Gorbachev seemed to be turning into his personal staff. In the course of 1986, Gorbachev became increasingly outspoken about resistance to change, which he admitted existed not only among the middle strata of the bureaucracy but at every level of society, as virtually no group in Soviet society stood only to gain from the changes. Some of Gorbachev's advisers warned that shop-floor workers who worked poorly or who lacked skills could find themselves facing relocation or even temporary unemployment. If implemented, the changes under discussion would enhance the role of personal incomes and increase the responsibility of the individual to care for himself, while reducing the role of state subventions to that of providing basic protection for members of society unable to take care of themselves.
