ABSTRACT
The growth and evolution of working class activism in the Soviet Union clearly reflects the dialectic of state control and public autonomy. Michael Gorbachev's efforts to promote worker activism can be traced back at least as far as the "USSR Law on State Enterprises," which was adopted by the Supreme Soviet on June 30, 1987. Workplace democratization under Gorbachev may also be viewed as a means to apply pressure to the state and party apparatus at the grass-roots, enterprise level where resistance to radical reform is strong. The initial failure to extend real democratic reforms outside of the work environment left the workers no power base from which to challenge the party and state officials in the enterprise. The politics of the workers' movement in the contemporary Soviet Union reflects a very real struggle between supporters and opponents of reform for the hearts and minds of the Soviet working class.
