Self-help organizations and charities were the most numerous, but least-studied of pressure groups to emerge during perestroika . This book examines the social exclusion experienced before 1985 by non-working citizens, studies the pre-1985 disabled people's movement and its numerous unofficial, but non-dissident organizations, discusses why the Gorbachev leadership adopted the non-Soviet concept of 'charity', analyses the failure of local authorities after 1985 to stave off pluralism and defeat the voluntary organizations, and assesses how successfully the latter built the foundations of a...

This book examines a number of key questions about social change in contemporary Russia - issues such as how people survive when they are not paid for months on end, 'the New Poor', the falling birth rate, why so many Russian men die in middle age, whether regional identities are becoming stronger, and how people's sense of 'Russianness' has developed since the creation of the Russian Federation in 1992. It examines these issues by looking at actual experiences in three small Russian towns. It includes a great deal of original ethnographic research, and, by looking at real places overall,...