Soviet Interview Project

In Restructuring the Soviet Economic Bureaucracy, Paul R. Gregory takes an inside look at how the system worked and why it has traditionally been so resistant to change. Gregory's findings shed light on a bureaucracy that was widely considered the greatest threat to Gorbachev's efforts at perestroika, or restructuring. Restructuring the Soviet Economic Bureaucracy is based on Soviet and Western published accounts as well as interviews with former members of the Soviet economic bureaucracy, mainly from the middle elite. These informants, with their expert knowledge of the system, tell how bureaucrats big and small made the routine and extraordinary decisions that determined Soviet resource allocation. The often-criticized irrationalities of the Soviet bureaucracy are revealed to contain their own internal logic and consistency.

In Restructuring the Soviet Economic Bureaucracy, Paul R. Gregory takes an inside look at how the system worked and why it has traditionally been so resistant to change. Gregory's findings shed light on a bureaucracy that was widely considered the greatest threat to Gorbachev's efforts at perestroika, or restructuring. Restructuring the Soviet Economic Bureaucracy is based on Soviet and Western published accounts as well as interviews with former members of the Soviet economic bureaucracy, mainly from the middle elite. These informants, with their expert knowledge of the system, tell how bureaucrats big and small made the routine and extraordinary decisions that determined Soviet resource allocation. The often-criticized irrationalities of the Soviet bureaucracy are revealed to contain their own internal logic and consistency.