Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book considers specifically to the 1987 Pravda article by Tatiana Zaslavskaia as a significant turning point in sociological research within the Soviet Union. It examines the readiness of Soviet citizens for democracy with data collected from the urban and rural areas of nine different republics in May 1990. The book shows that survey results provide evidence of mounting dissatisfaction with the performance of the Soviet economy, and even more widespread public discouragement about the economic future during the Mikhail Gorbachev era. It presents evidence suggesting that the collapse of the Soviet state could also be interpreted as a national conflict of Russians against peoples of other nationalities living on the periphery of the Union. The book argues that the Gorbachev years produced an extraordinary feat—the destruction of the invisible wall between private and public forms of political participation.