An inside account of the events unfolding in the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev. In a series of interviews, 14 leaders of Gorbachev's reforms talk about their personal and political struggles to change the Soviet Union. They include the Politburo member often called Gorbachev's right-hand man; three other members of the powerful Central Committee; leaders of the revolt against the old cultural bureaucracy, including Russia's most outspoken actor, poet and film-maker; and equally prominent reformers in economics, science, journalism and foreign policy. Other works by Stephen F.Cohen include "Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution", "An End to Silence" and "Sovieticus".