The discussion of Perestroika has suffered on the whole from inadequate attention paid to the nature of Soviet society. Yet, it is only upon knowing the kind of society we have before us that we can grasp the specificity of its problems and the possibilities within the system for resolving them. Hence any serious inquiry into Perestroika and Glasnost must begin by determining the best way to characterize the Soviet Union.

There has probably never been a society anywhere that has been burdened with so many different names: “socialism,” “communism,” “actually existing socialism,” “state socialism,” “bureaucratically deformed socialism,” “dictatorship of the proletariat,” “workers' state,” “people's democracy,” “state capitalism,” “totalitarianism,” “red fascism,” and there are others. The problem of finding the right label, of course, is a reflection of the difficulty people have had in deciding which one or few of its attributes have been decisive in giving the Soviet Union its distinctive character, including too its real history and potential for future change.