Donald Filtzer's new book is the study of industry and labor during Late Stalinism, covering the entire post-war period from 1945 to Stalin's death. He has uncovered a wealth of previously inaccessible archive material and analyzes it to show that the post-war period was one of "political victory and historical defeat." This subtle and compelling study will be of interest to all scholars of Russian history.

This is the first comprehensive study of the position of Soviet industrial workers during the Khrushchev period. Donald Filtzer examines the main features of Khrushchev's labor policy within the overall context of "de-Stalinization" and provides a detailed analysis of shop floor relations between workers and managers, the position of women workers and their specific role in the Soviet economy. In his conclusions, the author relates the labor problems of the Khrushchev years to those faced by Mikhail Gorbachev and perestroika, thus helping to explain the failure of Gorbachev's policies.

Soviet Workers and the Collapse of Perestroika is a comprehensive analysis of the role of labor policy in the development and ultimate collapse of Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms. Drawing on a wide range of sources, Filtzer argues that initially perestroika was designed to modernize the Soviet economy while keeping the existing political and property relations of society intact, requiring a thorough restructuring of the labor process within Soviet industry. He contends that the collapse of the USSR has brought the solution to this problem no nearer, and that post-Soviet capitalism is rooted in...

The Khrushchev Era examines the major political, social, and economic reforms of Nikita Khrushchev, from the 'Secret Speech' and Khrushchev's limited, but at the time earth-shattering critique of Stalin, to his ill-fated reorganizations of the Communist Party, agriculture, and industry. Besides giving a factual account of the reforms themselves, Filtzer analyses the complex factors behind their failure, focussing not so much on the inadequacies of Khrushchev as a leader, as on the structural obstacles to reform within the Stalinist system itself. As such the Khruschev period is shown to...

Donald Filtzer's new book is the study of industry and labor during Late Stalinism, covering the entire post-war period from 1945 to Stalin's death. He has uncovered a wealth of previously inaccessible archive material and analyzes it to show that the post-war period was one of "political victory and historical defeat." This subtle and compelling study will be of interest to all scholars of Russian history.

This is the first comprehensive study of the position of Soviet industrial workers during the Khrushchev period. Donald Filtzer examines the main features of Khrushchev's labor policy within the overall context of "de-Stalinization" and provides a detailed analysis of shop floor relations between workers and managers, the position of women workers and their specific role in the Soviet economy. In his conclusions, the author relates the labor problems of the Khrushchev years to those faced by Mikhail Gorbachev and perestroika, thus helping to explain the failure of Gorbachev's policies.

This is the first detailed study of the standard of living of ordinary Russians following World War II. It examines urban living conditions under the Stalinist regime with a focus on the key issues of sanitation, access to safe water supplies, personal hygiene and anti-epidemic controls, diet and nutrition, and infant mortality. Comparing five key industrial regions, it shows that living conditions still lagged some fifty years behind Western European norms. The book reveals that, despite this, the years preceding Stalin s death saw dramatic improvements in mortality rates thanks to the...