ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that despite the stability of major institutions and the structure of power, the Soviet political system changed after Stalin's death in fundamental respects. The far-reaching changes in policy and policymaking that have marked the post-Stalin era can be traced to important changes in each of the factors: the halting if incomplete institutionalization of politics; and Soviet leaders' adoption of a more inclusive and conciliatory approach toward managing their relations with society. Many of the ideas one finds circulating in the Soviet literature are simply naive or plainly ineffective, and social learning is often slow. Skepticism of the traditional methods emerged clearly in the economic reform movement that began in the late-1950s and flourished in the immediate wake of the 1965 Kosygin reform. From the beginning of Mikhail Gorbachev's rule, Western specialists have been deeply divided about the prospects of state-led change in the Soviet Union.
