Merle Fainsod's classic How Russia Is Ruled (1953) is here brought up to date and extensively revised by Jerry Hough, with new interpretations, new chapters, and new ideas. Hough declares himself a Fainsodian and keeps much of the earlier text, but his own contribution, focusing on the question of how the policy process actually works rather than on how the leadership maintains control, is a very considerable one. This book should serve both as a text for instruction and as a notable original-and sometimes controversial-inquiry into the realities of Soviet politics.