First Published in 1989. It has become common, both in Soviet and in Western writings about the USSR, to characterize the early 1980s (the immediate pre-Gorbachev period) as years of stagnation or, at the very least, near stagnation in the Soviet system. Since the sudden outburst of reformist thinking since 1985 it is clear there is actually an elaboration and reinforcement of concepts and ideas that had already begun to emerge in the pre-Gorbachev years. The writings of Tat 'iana I. Zaslavskaia, trained as an economist and today one of the most influential and best known Soviet sociologists, provide an illustration of this proposition.