ABSTRACT
The collapse of communist systems provided evidence of the modest powers of prediction of the social sciences including sociology. Astonishingly enough it emerged-and not only in Hungary and the rest of East Europe but also in the Soviet Union-that seventy or forty years of political education and indoctrination had little or only a transient impact on generations raised and submerged in the Soviet-communist political culture. A selective threat perception also influenced perceptions of the character of communist systems and estimates of their benign transformation. Focusing on the Soviet political elite offers the best hope to unravel the mystery of the changes of the Gorbachev era and even the most recent developments, that is, the failed coup of August 1991, the ascendance of Boris Yeltsin, and the new measures introduced to transform Soviet political and economic life and what used to be the "union" itself.
