The setting : an introduction / Alexander Dallin and Gail W. Lapidus -- pt. 1. The roots of perestroika -- A usable past / S. Frederick Starr -- The communist system / Richard Pipes -- Domestic and international factors in the formation of Gorbachev's reforms / Seweryn Bialer -- Politics before Gorbachev : de-Stalinization and the roots of reform / Peter Hauslohner -- The friends and foes of change : reformism and conservatism in the Soviet Union / Stephen F. Cohen -- Letter to the Soviet leaders, March 19, 1970 / Andrei Sakharov, Roy Medvedev and Valery Turchin -- The pioneers of perestroika : back to the intellectual roots of Soviet reforms / David Remnick -- pt. 2. Reform and the political and social system -- The beginnings of independent political activity / Geoffrey A. Hosking -- Political change in the Soviet Union / Archie Brown -- State and society : toward the emergence of civil society in the Soviet Union / Gail W. Lapidus -- The emergence of independent associations and the transformation of Russian political society / Steven Fish -- Evaluating Gorbachev as leader / George W. Breslauer -- The quality of Gorbachev's leadership / Peter Reddaway -- Gorbachev's endgame / Jerry F. Hough -- pt. 3. Soviet political debates -- Glasnost' and Soviet culture / Josephine Woll -- Politics and history under Gorbachev / Thomas Sherlock -- Advances and debts / Nikolai Shmelev -- Sources / Vasily Selyunin -- Are our principles any good? / Aleksandr Tsipko -- Speech at the Conference of the Aktiv of the Khabarovsk Territory Party Organization, July 31, 1986 / Mikhail S. Gorbachev -- I cannot forgo my principles / Nina Andreyeva -- The tragedy of centralism / Aleksandr Prokhanov -- I can't absolve myself of guilt / Oleg T. Bogomolov -- Elite privileges / Boris Yeltsin -- Democratic platform program of the CPSU, Statement of June 1, 1990 -- pt. 4. The economy -- Is Soviet socialism reformable? / Ed A. Hewett -- Beyond perestroyka : the Soviet economy in crisis -- The effort collapses / Marshall Goldman -- pt. 5. Nationalities and federation -- State, civil society and ethnic cultural consolidation in the USSR : roots of the national question / Ronald G. Suny -- Gorbachev's nationalities problem / Gail W. Lapidus -- Dilemmas of Russian nationalism / Roman Szporluk -- The Russian question : in search of an answer (a roundtable) -- Declarations of the state sovereignty of the Russian and Ukrainian republics -- Speech to the Russian Federation Congress of People's Deputies, Moscow, May 22, 1990 / Boris Yeltsin -- The national dimension / Giulietto Chiesa with Douglas T. Northrop -- pt. 6. Foreign and security policy -- The revolution in Soviet foreign policy / Robert Legvold -- East-West : the problem of deideologizing relations / Georgii Shakhnazarov -- Address at the Forty-Third UN General Assembly Session, December 7, 1988 / Mikhail S. Gorbachev -- New thinking about world communism / Alexander Dallin -- Gorbachev and German unification : revision of thinking, realignment of power / Hannes Adomeit -- The USSR and the Third World in the 1980's / David E. Albright -- Soviet national security under Gorbachev / Bruce Parrott -- State, society, and the military under Gorbachev / David Holloway -- The architects of card houses / Yuri Katasonov -- pt. 7. From coup to collapse -- Speech to the Congress of People's Deputies, December 20, 1990 / Edvard Shevardnadze -- Top-secret KGB memorandum to the President of the USSR / Vladimir Kryuchkov -- An open letter to the people, July 23, 1991 / Yury Bondarev et al. -- Interview with Aleksandr Yakovlev, August 16, 1991 / Oleg Moroz -- A coup chronology / Editors of Current Digest of the Soviet Press -- Anatomy of a failed coup / John B. Dunlop -- The coup revisited / Gavriil Popov -- Speech to the RSFSR Congress of People's Deputies and to the citizens of Russia, October 28, 1991 / Boris Yeltsin -- Agreement on the creation of a Commonwealth of Independent States / Stanislau Shushkevich, Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kravchuk -- The Alma-Ata Declaration / A. Mutalibov et al. -- Resignation speech, December 25, 1991 / Mikhail S. Gorbachev -- pt. 8. Reflections -- To the Stalin mausoleum / "Z" (Martin Malia) -- Causes of the collapse of the USSR / Alexander Dallin -- Who won the Cold War? / Daniel Deudney and G. John Ikenberry -- The "shadows" come to light / Edvard Shevardnadze -- Inside Gorbachev's Kremlin / Yegor Ligachev -- Conclusion / Gail W. Lapidus and Alexander Dallin