A talented and courageous economist and sociologist, Tatyana Zaslavskaya was an intellectual forerunner of perestroika. In this book written for a worldwide readership she reviews with lucidity and logic how the Soviet economy and society reached the stage of stagnation under Brezhnev and what moves have to be made, through democratization and social change, to bring about the necessary revolution from below to match the reforms from above. The author is known as one of the "radical" reformers, but still the ultimate aim is "the building of socialism."