Soviet power and the countryside

The collapse of the Soviet Union was one of the major events of the Twentieth Century. Soviet Power and the Countryside provides an important new contribution to the debate about which factors produced the sudden and unexpected demise of the Soviet order. Drawing upon extensive archival and other original sources, a detailed analysis of the design, implementation and collapse of Soviet policy toward the countryside is used to explore the implications of a broadening of participation in the policy process from the 1960s. Neil J. Melvin argues that the new knowledge about rural society created as a result of this process provided the basis for a fundamental change in the nature of power relations in the Soviet order, leading to the decay and eventual collapse of policy making institutions.--