Peter Rutland analyzes the role played by regional and local organs of the Soviet Communist Party in economic management from 1970 to 1989. Using a range of Soviet political and economic journals, newspapers and academic publications, he examines Communist Party economic interventions in construction, energy, transport, consumer goods, and agriculture. He convincingly argues that party interventions hindered rather than assisted the search for efficiency in the Soviet economy and represent a major obstacle to the current economic reform movement.

Business and the State in Contemporary Russia is the most recent volume in the John M. Olin Critical Issues series, published by Westview in conjunction with Harvard's Davis Center for Russian Research. In this latest installation, contributors discuss issues as far-ranging as the dynamics of rule in contemporary Russia, the banking elite, the politics of the Russian media business, the political economy of the Russian oil and coal industries, and the causes and consequences of the August 1998 crash.