ABSTRACT
Perestroika was exciting, with its call for the restructuring and regeneration of the whole of Soviet society. Soviet criminal laws have been deliberately drafted in such a sweeping and imprecise way as to enable the authorities to charge and readily secure convictions of any persons they wish to put away under vaguely drawn "anti-state" provisions. Although Gorbachev and a majority of the Politburo are resolutely committed to a radical transformation of Soviet society involving the elimination of arbitrary rule and oppression, they remain dedicated to the fundamental conception of the USSR as a federal union under the direction of the Communist Party. The bitter opposition within the party to the increasingly radical form and momentum of perestroika stems in part from the narrow selfinterest of members of the apparatus who feel their power and status threatened.
