"This eye-opening anthology offers 32 pieces (some significantly abridged) published during 1988 and 1989 in the progressive Soviet journal Ogonyok (Flame), which Korotich edits. Dmitry Gubin interviews Arkady Norinsky about his fight against Pamyat, an anti-Semitic nationalist organization that seems to have the tacit approval of Leningrad authorities. Dmitry Likahnov explores how the fledgling cooperative marketing system has been exploited by organized crime as well as by government employees, who have their own 'vast official racket.' Physician Andrei Popov describes how, lacking safe, effective contraception, Soviets rely on abortion for birth control: in Moscow, more than 70% of women "unofficially terminate their first pregnancies." Yury Belyavsky and Vitaly Vitaliev depict an eerily empty Exhibition of Economic Achievements. Officials keep most people out for fear they will steal the food from the displays. Such lively pieces are complemented with effective photos ranging from a street vendor selling Brezhnev masks to an excavated mass grave of some of Stalin's victims. Porter is the author of Women in Revolutionary Russia." -- Publishers Weekly
