Communism: Soviet Union Hard Lessons and Unhappy Citizens

Not so long ago, the catalog of crises that have recently afflicted the Soviet Union would have been buried in the recesses of the Kremlin, with much of the rest of the world none the wiser. Not anymore. With a newly emboldened press and oratorical skirmishing going on constantly in Moscow's new Congress of People's Deputies, an engrossed world knows practically everything.

The very act of revelation is a central feature in the gradual loosening of Communist strictures that Mikhail Gorbachev is bringing to the Soviet Union, as he grapples with the challenge of revamping the system without completely violating it...